


Coming Up for Air

by Euphorion



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Agender Character, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Coffee Shops, Depression, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Internalized Acephobia, Leenik and zero have prosthetic arms, M/M, Matchmaking, Mild Blood, Multi, Polyamorous Character, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Esteem Issues, Trans Character, leenik does drag, monologues, sorta - Freeform, the bluebird is a combination cafe/club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-03-09 14:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13483071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: Tryst was like if you took all of Leenik’s worst impulses and made them hot. Only in Tryst they didn’t feel—dangerous. Or they did, but the good kind of dangerous, not the unbalanced, fragile kind. In Tryst they were the kind of dangerous that made you fun at parties, rather than the kind that got you psychiatric screenings. Tryst took the spikes out of Leenik’s free-falling self-destruction and made him think—infectious and certain—that he was going to land safely before before he leapt.He was usually wrong. Which was how they ended up back at the Bluebird, at 8 am, two hours into Leenik’s shift, slumped into a booth. Leenik was tipped forward with his head on the table. Bacta’s head was on his knee, the rest of him splayed across the bench. He felt kind of weird about that—not Bacta in his space, he’d had that for five years easy as breathing. It was the six months that he hadn’t that was making it weird.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> from the ospn kinkmeme: 
> 
> _I'm interested in these three figuring out something stable despite their various issues, and arriving at some semblance of peace._
> 
> _I view Aava as aro and Leenik as grey ace_
> 
> _I don't want to give too much direction in terms of the setting of the modern au, but I was thinking that Bacta and Aava probably were Tamlin's godparents so one of them has custody if not both (which sounds like another fic prompt)_
> 
> It's morphed away from that into....pretty much everyone trying to figure out their shit in a modern AU where they still have pretty fucked up lives.

 Leenik splashed water on his face, running a finger under his eye in a probably fruitless effort to get rid of his eyeliner. Fuck it; he’d try again in the morning. Or maybe he wouldn’t, his boss was pretty used to him coming in looking like he’d been punched in the eye. Only one, though. The other was clean, spared from his makeup by the eyepatch.

He was gonna have to switch it up soon. He’d been feeling the itch lately, and “switching the side you wear your fake eyepatch on for drag shows” beat “leave town and never come back” or “commit arson” for ways to scratch it.

Aava made a neutral sort of _hm_ noise from where she leaned in the bathroom doorway. “Trystan’s coming over.”

Leenik blinked at her in the mirror. “What? Now? It’s like 3 am.”

Aava looked up from her phone and just arched a brow, as if to say, _since when has Tryst ever paid attention to things like time?_

Leenik sighed in acknowledgement. “He coming to see you or me?”

Aava tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Both, I think. He said ‘y’all up,’ and I doubt he’d use the plural if this were just a booty-call or a… whatever the romantic equivalent of a booty-call is.”

“A hearty-call,” said Leenik, and then pulled a face at himself. “No, that sounds like some kind of rustic outdoorsman howling to attract other rustic outdoorsmen.”

He wiped the last bit of lipstick from the corner of his mouth and turned to look at Aava fully. She was devastating and casual at once in a corset-style tank-top and boyshorts, and not for the first time Leenik reflected—kind of gleefully—at the number of people who were into women who would kill to be her roommate. He got none of the pleasure out of it they would, but depriving them of it was a pleasure in itself.

“Let me know if he says anything else,” he said, “I want to know if I should put my arm back on.”

He slid past Aava as she took his place at the sink, checking her makeup rather than removing it now that she knew their sort-of-boyfriend was coming over. “You know,” she called as Leenik collapsed onto the couch, stretching all the way across it. “He could text you directly if you ever fixed your phone.”

“Too lazy to do it myself,” Leenik replied, “and too expensive to get someone else to. Besides, who do I need to contact? You? We live together. If Tryst needs me he just texts you, or shows up at the three locations where I ever am.” It was true; his life pretty much revolved around being here, at work, or at the Bluebird, the club/coffee bar where Aava worked and he performed.

Aava wandered out of the bathroom. “And Bacta?” Her tone was just a touch sharper than usual.

Leenik shifted uncomfortably. “Bacta doesn’t need to contact me. And if he does he can _also_ just text you—”

“Leenik, we both know that’s never gonna happen.”

Leenik huffed. “Then Bacta can tell Tryst, or Tamlin, and they can tell you! There! Solved!”

“Or,” said Aava, “you could stop making your friends play human telephone when you have an actual one that you are fully capable of making functional.”

Leenik ran his hand over his face. “I don’t,” he started, and then stopped. _I don’t want you to be able to contact me_ was wrong, especially when it came to Tryst, but he couldn’t really figure out a way to phrase what he meant. “I don’t like feeling like I’m always at the end of a string,” he muttered finally.

Aava came over to lean against the arm of the couch opposite the one he was using as a headrest. “Leenik, babe,” she said, her face sympathetic. “You know we’re not trying to—”

There was the sound of a key in a lock and Tryst swept through the door like a whirlwind. He was wearing a floral button-up, what looked like Bacta’s headphones around his neck, and what was _definitely_ a pair of Lyn’s pants, judging by how tight they were and how he’d jammed his wallet into the too-small front pocket. “Leenik, you _need_ to get a new phone. Hi, Aava.”

“Hi, handsome,” Aava replied, giving Leenik a pointed look.

“Ugh,” said Leenik, but he sat up, tilting his face up to be kissed.

Tryst obliged, tucking his knuckle under Leenik’s chin and leaning down to kiss him slow and soft. It grounded Leenik immediately, pulling him a good ways back out of his weird, displaced mood.

He could feel Tryst smiling as he pulled away, straightening back up to look down at him. “You look good,” he said, “how was the show?”

Leenik shrugged. “It was fine,” he said, and then amended: “good,” because it had been.

“He won the lip-synch battle,” Aava added. “With Kesha’s Spaceship, it was pretty great.”

“Whatever,” said Leenik, secretly pleased. “I was up against, like, three people, it’s not like it was _hard._ ”

Tryst snorted. “Okay, Elle Woods. Anyway get your arm back on, we’re going out.”

Leenik made a face. “What, now?” he asked for the second time in half an hour.

Aava shook her head. “I am _not_ going out,” she said. “It’s 3 am, some of us have work in the morning.”

“C’mon!” said Tryst, making little hip movements at her as if that would somehow convince her to leave with him. “I asked if y’all were up and you said yes!”

“Yeah,” said Aava, “up for a booty-call or whatever the romantic version of a booty call is—”

“A hearty-call,” Tryst said, and then made a face. “Ew, no, that sounds like Mr. Krabs trying to say ‘article’.”

Leenik giggled, tipping his forehead into Tryst’s hip, and Tryst settled a hand on his head, absently running a thumb up and down the buzzed fuzz of his hair, from the nape of his neck up over his crown.

“Not,” Aava finished, though Leenik could see a ghost of a smile around her mouth, “for whatever shenanigans _this_ is.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Have fun, boys.”

She leaned up to give Tryst a slightly mocking kiss on the cheek—her lipstick matched the florals of his shirt—and disappeared past him into her room.

“Shenanigans,” Tryst said derisively. “Who does she think she is?”

“She thinks she's Aava, who knows exactly what kind of shit we get up to,” said Leenik. Tryst’s fingers were now tracing lightly down his ear and jaw, and he relaxed into it, his eyelids fluttering. “Can’t we just sleep instead?” he said plaintively.

Tryst slid to a knee in front of him. “Let me paint you a word-picture,” he said seriously, “and then you can decide. Sleep or shenanigans.”

Leenik blinked at him. “You’re giving me veto power?”

Tryst nodded, his face grave. “That’s how certain I am that you’re gonna want to come out with me. All I need is seven words.”

Leenik narrowed his eyes at him, intrigued. “Okay, Valentine,” he said. “You have my attention.”

Tryst counted off on his fingers, holding Leenik’s gaze. “Bacta. Let. Tamlin. Design. His. New. Tattoo.”

“Holy shit,” Leenik breathed. “But—wait, what’s happening with that _now,_ it’s 3 am—”

“What’s happening with it _now_ is that he’s _also_ drunk, and he _also_ just discovered Vous-Vous owns a tattoo gun. But that was way more than seven words and I thought the first bit would be enough.”

“Uh, yeah, it _was._ ” He held out his hand so Tryst could help him up. “Let’s go.”

Tryst pulled him to his feet, beaming.

+

Tryst was like if you took all of Leenik’s worst impulses and made them hot. Only in Tryst they didn’t feel—dangerous. Or they did, but the good kind of dangerous, not the unbalanced, fragile kind. In Tryst they were the kind of dangerous that made you fun at parties, rather than the kind that got you psychiatric screenings. Tryst took the spikes out of Leenik’s free-falling self-destruction and made him think—infectious and certain—that he was going to land safely before before he leapt.

He was usually wrong. Which was how they ended up back at the Bluebird, at 8 am, two hours into Leenik’s shift, slumped into a booth. Leenik was tipped forward with his head on the table. Bacta’s head was on his knee, the rest of him splayed across the bench. He felt kind of weird about that—not Bacta in his space, he’d had that for five years easy as breathing. It was the six months that he _hadn’t_ that was making it weird.

Or. _Not_ weird, when it should be. Leenik was pretty sure that when you moved out on one of your best friends to live with his mortal enemy that he had, until pretty recently, been in a custody battle with there were supposed to be some hard feelings, especially when you also ghosted on him without explanation.

Bacta groaned. “Tryst,” he said, “your sister’s so _hot._ ”

Tryst was on the opposite bench, his feet up on the table. He scoffed from underneath the too-big cowboy hat he’d stolen from—someone at Rendezvous’s place, Leenik thought vaguely that his name might have been George—and currently had tipped over his face, probably to keep light from triggering the same hangover that was splitting Leenik’s entire head in half. “Of course she’s hot,” he said, “she’s my sister. Wait. That came out wrong.”

“All Valentines are hot,” Leenik said matter-of-factly. “And Vous-Vous is, like, all buff and butch, so.”

“I _know,_ ” said Bacta mournfully, at the same time that Tryst said, “Yeah, exactly,” and then, almost wounded, “wait, hey.”

“Do you think it’s a good sign that she didn’t want to tattoo me while drunk even though she was doing it to other dudes?” Bacta asked.

But Leenik had his head turned sideways, cheek on the cool tabletop, trying to discern the expression on Tryst’s face under his hat. “Tryst,” he said, glee worming its way through his headache, “are you jealous?”

“Bacta, yes, I think it’s either a good sign because she likes your tattoos and doesn’t want to fuck up the landscape of your beautiful bod with some drunken scrawl, _or_ it’s a bad sign because she finds you disgusting and never wants to touch you with a ten-foot pole,” said Tryst, “and Leenik, jealous of what, of Bacta finding my sister hot? Because that ship done sailed—”

Bacta started muttering something, and Leenik lay his prosthetic hand over his mouth. “No, idiot, of _me_ saying she’s hot.”

Tryst raised a hand to scratch under the hat and Leenik saw the corner of his quirked mouth. “I mean. Yeah, a little.”

“Why?” Leenik asked, delighted. Jealousy in Tryst was rare and to be treasured.

“Uh, because you’re my boyfriend—”

Leenik waved a hand. “Sure, whatever, but it’s not like we’re _exclusive_ ,” because they weren’t—there was Aava, for one thing, and he’d long ago come to terms with the fact that if Tryst wasn’t in _his_ bed or in _her_ bed he was definitely in someone else’s somewhere else, and that just came with the territory.

Tryst slid downward on the bench and pushed the hat back so it was actually perched on his head. “I mean, we might as well be, these days. Discounting Aava, obviously, I haven’t slept with anyone else in—hell, like two months?”

The question seemed mostly directed at Bacta, who picked Leenik’s hand up off his face long enough to say an affirmative, “Tryst Valentine, settling _down,_ ” and then put it back down again.

Leenik looked down at him, messing with his eyebrows, because he wasn’t sure what face he would even make at Tryst right now. He was pretty sure if he thought about being actually exclusive with Tryst (and Aava) he would have a full-on panic attack, so he focused instead on how Bacta’s scar pulled one of his eyebrows up a little more than the other, and how he was absolutely definitely going to get fired from his job.

“I don’t think ‘not actively looking for more than two partners’ really counts as _settling down,_ ” said Tryst mildly, and then he said, “anyway, who I sleep with is not the point.” He leaned forward, leveling an accusatory finger at Leenik. “You’re supposed to be a one-man guy.”

Leenik smiled sideways at him, back on familiar ground. He leaned forward and propped his chin on his hand, kissing the tip of Tryst’s finger. “I am,” he said simply. “But the man in question is fun to mess with.”

Tryst dropped his arm, like Leenik had stolen all the strength from it. “You’re lucky I’m too hungover to move,” he said, and then, turning his head to look at the bar, “who’s a guy gotta kill to get a cup of coffee around here—oh _shit,_ Bacta, Synox is working today.”

Bacta—incomprehensibly—seemed to suck all of his limbs into his torso and get physically smaller on the bench. “No,” he said, still muffled by Leenik’s hand. “Nope, I can’t deal with him right now, Tryst, wish him away again—”

“Too late,” Tryst hissed, putting the lie to his own words from a moment before and shifting his legs off the table guiltily as Synox strode over to them. “Uh. Morning.”

“Good morning, boys,” said Synox. Leenik wondered if he always looked like he was about five seconds from snapping all of his customer’s necks or if they were a special case. He suspected it might just be the guy’s face. “If you're looking for Miss Arek she won’t be in for another hour.”

“It’s 8:30?” Leenik wailed, his face slipping off his hand. “God, I am definitely unemployed by now.”

Tryst waved a hand. “No, no,” he said. “We’re here for breakfast, just like any other customers.”

“No,” Bacta groaned. “No food. Coffee, please.”

Synox leaned over to look at him, as if he hadn’t been sure who the shape collapsed in Leenik’s lap was until now. “Soldier,” he acknowledged, his voice—for him—decidedly mild.

Bacta shot upward, nearly yanking Leenik’s arm off. “Sir.”

Synox studied his face for a minute, and then said, unreadable, “Coffee.” His gaze shifted to Leenik. “Geelo?”

Leenik pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tea. And. Soup? Is that even a thing you have?”

Synox lifted a shoulder. “Sure,” he said, unconvincing. “Valentine?”

“Coffee,” said Tryst, “and one of those bougie grits-and-bacon cups you guys do, with extra bacon, and a poached egg. And a scone.” He flashed Synox a smile.

Leenik did too, a pale imitation. “Thanks, Sy.”

“Don’t call me that,” Synox said firmly, and turned, not bothering to write anything down. He’d remember it.

Leenik frowned. “Dunno what his problem is, Aava and Zero call him Sy all the time.”

“Yeah, but they’re like, his friends,” Tryst pointed out.

Bacta slumped, like no longer being looked at by Synox had cut his strings. “He was checking if I was high,” he muttered, sounding mortified. “I _know_ that’s what he was doing, that’s why he looked at me so long—”

“I’m his friend,” Leenik objected, “And Bacta maybe he just likes looking at you, he’s your ex—”

“He is _not_ my ex!” Bacta hissed.

“Leenik, just because someone spends time around you doesn’t actually mean you’re friends, especially if you show up at their job and pay them to,” said Tryst, “And Bacta he’s _definitely_ your ex, you get super weird around him and he’s like exactly your type.”

Leenik nodded, agreeing. “A little older, ripped as hell _—_ ”

“Good jaw,” Tryst continued. “Hang on, a lot like your own jaw actually, is this some kind of narcissistic thing—”

Bacta grit his teeth. It was heartening, actually, he must be feeling less hungover. “Tryst, you are the _last_ person who could ever accuse anyone else of narcissism, and Synox is not my ex, he was my drill sergeant—”

“That’s what she said,” Leenik and Tryst said at the same time, and then high-fived. Tryst linked their fingers together after, and Leenik slid out of his laughter into something—quiet and nice.

Bacta buried his face in his hands. “He was my drill sergeant and now he works with the woman trying to steal my son and he thinks I wandered in here at 7 am, high—”

“Don’t worry,” Leenik said cheerfully, “we’ll make sure to tell Aava you just wandered in here at 7 am, drunk.”

“First of all,” said Tryst,  “I’m not a narcissist, I’m a masochist, Leenik can confirm.”

Leenik could, and did.

“Second of all,” Tryst continued, “you don’t have to worry about what Synox thinks, because you’re not in the military anymore, and your court case is over, you guys settled.” He let go of Leenik’s hand to lean over to knock a knuckle on Bacta’s bald head. “Remember?”

Bacta made a despairing, wincing sort of noise. “Sorry. Hard dynamic to fall out of.”

“Third of all.” Tryst turned his knocking into an affectionate pat. “Leenik’s right, Aava knows we were out with you, and she knows you’re not a bad dad. She’ll figure you took a night off and left Tama with Lyn, which is true. It’s all fine.”

Synox brought them their coffees and Leenik his tea, silent.

“Aava knows you were out with me?” Bacta said at last, presumably when the coffee kicked in enough for him to trace back through Tryst’s points.

“Yeah,” said Tryst, “I was trying to get her to come.”

Bacta slowly put down his mug. “Why?”

“Because—” Tryst blew out a breath. “She’s—we’re—Leenik, you tell him.”

Leenik studied his tea, thinking about it. “I think for some reason Tryst thinks that if you guys just spend more time together you’ll like each other more. Aava’s, you know, she’s important. But I think he’s forgetting that you guys have spent time together, a lot of it, and you still hate her.” He sipped his tea. “Also I think he conveniently forgets because he doesn’t making multiple plans, and if we all liked each other he could just hang out with all of us all the time.” He raised his eyes to Tryst’s face. “Right?”

Tryst shrugged. “Basically,” he said. “Also it’s because you guys miss each other and I don’t want to constantly figure out sneaky bullshit ways to get you to hang out now that ‘Nik lives with Aava.”

“You miss me?” Leenik looked sideways at Bacta, too tired for any of his filters to work. “I figured you probably hated me now.”

Bacta stared at him. “Jesus, Leenik, of course I don’t hate you. I might wish that you'd talked to me about this more before you left, but Tryst says it's good for you, so I'm not going to resent you for that.  And.” He took a breath. “I do miss you. Tamlin does too, and Tony.”

“Oh.” Leenik sat back abruptly, fixing his arm where Bacta had knocked awkward earlier. “Well,” he said. “You know.” He missed them, too, especially Tony. But there was a freedom to living with Aava, a looseness of movement, of— _morality,_ his hindbrain said in Bacta’s accent, and he shushed it, but it was circling around something real: Bacta and Lyn and Tamlin and Tony were a family. Stable, in their own weird hard-won way, a carefully crafted nest. And Leenik, well, Leenik was all sharp edges. With Aava he never felt he had to blunt himself, or keep himself inside some sort of line. It was a freedom from judgment, and from the weight of expectation.

He never felt like he had to blunt himself with Tryst, either, but they’d already been over that one. Masochist, and all.

His soup arrived, and he took it, hiding his eyes behind the steam rising from the bowl.

“I don’t hate Aava either,” Bacta continued. “I just. She’s so certain that she knows what’s best for Tamlin when she was barely there for the first five years he was even alive—”

“She did try to be,” Leenik pointed out, because he did nothing as well as immediately ruin any good will extended his way. He just—he knew Bacta and Aava were never going to be friends, but she was _his_ friend, and he felt someone should stick up for her.

Bacta’s whole face tightened. “Griselle told me before she died that she didn’t want Aava in Tamlin’s life. What was I going to do, ignore what she said on her damn death bed—”

“Bacta,” Tryst said warningly, and shot his eyes over to the door.

Leenik followed his gaze. Aava had just come in, looking well-rested and perfectly made up, her clothes impeccable. She’d probably showered. She probably even had time to _meditate._

She noticed him watching her and smiled at him, radiating a cool calm, and he let out an involuntary, longing little sigh.

He turned back to look mournfully at Tryst. “I should have vetoed. I could have _slept._ I could still have a job—”

“Stop saying that,” said Tryst. “They're not gonna fire you for missing a single shift, and anyway I called you out.”

Leenik blinked at him. “You what?”

Tryst waved a hand. “I called you out,” he said. “Around like - I dunno, 5? Like an hour before you were supposed to be there, when you were making drinks with Neemo. I called and left a message that you were too sick to come in. It's fine, it's not like they can call you to confirm. You'll just have to fake a cough or something when you go in tomorrow.”

“Oh,” said Leenik, suddenly filled with a ridiculous warmth. “Thank you. Um. I love you.”

Tryst’s eyes widened and then warmed above the rim of his coffee mug, and then Aava slid him his food and he turned to grin at her. “Good morning.”

“Morning, lovely,” she responded, and then looked at Bacta. “Bacta.”

Bacta inclined his head, relaxing his jaw with a visible effort. “Aava.”

Aava smiled her in-public smile, none of it touching her eyes, looking between them. “You boys have a fun night?”

“Yeah,” said Tryst, at the same time that Bacta said, “It was fine—I should go.”

Leenik gave Tryst a look, and Tryst rolled his eyes. “Bacta, c’mon, hang out—”

“No, like, I actually have to go,” said Bacta, checking his phone. “Lyn’s got a shift in an hour, I gotta pick up the kid.”

Aava nodded. “Say hi for me,” she said.

Bacta, to Leenik’s surprise, nodded back. “I will.” He stood up, and then paused. “Aava.”

Aava raised her eyebrows at him. “Hm?”

Bacta stared at something beyond her ear. “We should meet up sometime. Talk about—you know, the plan. Tamlin’s future.”

Aava’s eyebrows climbed even higher. “That’s new,” she said.

Bacta shrugged awkwardly. “You’re,” he said, and then stopped, and then started again. “You’re important to my friends, and to my son, and I could be making more of an effort.”

Aava inclined her head, surprised but still graceful. “I appreciate that. You have my contact information, let me know when you’re free.”

Bacta nodded again, and then fled, pushing his way through the door and sliding past someone coming in. They were tall and dressed head to toe in black, including a black motorcycle helmet with a dramatic blue slash on the side. Leenik watched them raise a hand that looked a lot like his own to Synox, who nodded, looking maybe three or four notches less tense now that Bacta was gone, and then pull off their helmet, shaking out short, dark hair.

Tryst snorted. “That guy is so lame.”

Leenik turned to look back at him. Aava had settled into the booth at his side, leaning comfortably against his arm.

“Who, Zero?” she said. “No, Zero’s great.”

“Yeah, what's your problem with Zero?” Leenik asked. “He's chill.” He was—Leenik genuinely liked him, though the shared trauma probably helped. Still, if you had to share a horrific, life-shattering event with someone and be left with matching scars you could do worse than to have it be Zero.

Tryst wrinkled his nose. “But like. What kind of dude goes by his DJ name in like, normal life?”

Aava rolled her eyes. “You’re one to talk.”

“Yeah,” said Leenik, “we can’t all be named Sexual Encounter Lovenote. Besides, he’s got a name, it’s like. Owen or something. Definitely starts with O.”

Tryst shrugged. “I dunno, I just think he’s trying too hard. And he’s always following that Blue kid around.”

Leenik sipped his tea.“I thought they were dating, are they not dating? They should be dating, Zero talks about him, like, constantly.”

Aava sighed. “I know that, and you know that, but against all odds it seems like neither of them have figured it out.”

“Hm. Hm hm hm.” Tryst looked at Leenik, who met his gaze, excitement rising. “You know what that sounds like?”

Leenik returned his smirk. “That sounds like a _challenge._ ”

“Boys,” said Aava, but she sounded intrigued.

“You got a minute before you actually have to be working?” Tryst asked. “We could use your expertise.”

Leenik shook his head, moving his tea out of the way so he could lay out his napkin. “I can’t believe Bacta left before we discovered we had a romantic mission to undertake,” he said. He pulled a pencil out of the slot in his prosthetic where he kept it. “Okay. How do we go about this?”

“We can fill him in later.” Tryst leaned forward, downing his coffee. “Okay. So. The obvious way to do this is for me to seduce one of them to make the other one jealous.”

“Right, right,” Leenik agreed, “that's usually plan A.” He wrote down _plan a: tryst seduces_ and then paused, looking up at his boyfriend.

Tryst narrowed his eyes. “Aava, who do you think I have a better chance with? I hope it’s Zero. Blue’s cute, but he looks like he might snap in half if he had a sexual feeling. Zero’s got that tall dark and handsome thing going on.”

Leenik nodded. “He’s like, _super_ tall. It’s pretty nuts how tall he is.”

Aava looked amused. “Tryst, weren’t you just saying how lame he was?”

Tryst waved a hand. “You can be hot and lame at the same time.”

“Luckily for you,” said Leenik, delighted with himself at the burn.

Aava gave him a quiet high-five. Tryst waved his middle finger in his face, and Leenik snapped his jaws at it, then stole a piece of his bacon.

“Definitely Zero,” Aava confirmed. “Blue is about as gay as a human can get, but he’s so repressed that he hasn’t acted on his shit with Zero _,_ he’s not gonna act on it with anyone casually. Zero’s just _emotionally_ repressed, so that’s where I’d go.”

“Would you?” Leenik asked, curious.

Aava cocked her head at him. “Would I? What, sleep with Zero? Yeah, if he were into it. We’re too close, though, it would get all… feelings-messy with Blue. We already have a weird animosity thing going on.”

Leenik nodded and filled in _tryst seduces zero_ on his napkin.

Tryst popped grits and egg into his mouth. “It's too bad you're not into the seduction part, Leenik,” he said around his spoon.

Leenik raised his eyebrows, or at least the places where his eyebrows would be if he didn’t shave them off. “Why?”

“You've got like a built in reason to see him, with your weekly sessions. You know, you'll be sparring, working out tension, getting all sweaty together… are you shirtless? Both of you shirtless, I always imagine you shirtless.” Tryst smirked, his tongue flickering into the corner of his smile.

Leenik made a face at him. “I assure you it's very clean and clothed, sorry to disappoint. You could always come by after we’re done though. Oh!  Maybe you’ve been on a run, and _you’re_ shirtless and sweaty—”

“Ooh, good thinking,” said Tryst. “God, but then I'd have to actually go on a run.”

Aava shook her head at him. “How do you possibly have the body that you have? I've never seen you do a single pushup, or actually any kind of exercise.”

Tryst leered at her. “Oh, I get plenty of exercise.”

“Not in the last two months,” Leenik said, before he could stop himself.

Aava arched a brow. “Oh?”

Tryst took another bite, shrugging.

“Tryst hasn’t been sleeping with people,” Leenik filled in, on this track now whether it was a good idea or not. It wound through him like wire, tightening him up. “Except us, obviously.”

“Really?” Aava seemed nothing but curious.

Tryst swallowed, tapping the spoon against his mouth. “Yeah, it's whatever. I don't know why Leenik’s making a big deal about it.”

“Well,” said Leenik, suddenly almost angry, “it’s because it doesn’t make any fucking sense, Tryst. If you're only going to be with two people, why would one of them be me?”

Tryst immediately stilled. “Leenik,” he said, his eyes going soft in a way that made Leenik regret every word he'd ever said in his entire fucking life.

He swallowed rapidly, looking away from Tryst’s face and raising his hands against any further—anything. “God,” he said, too loud, “nevermind, forget I said anything, I'm—I haven't slept in like 26 hours, I’m just gonna go home, it’s fine.” He grabbed the napkin off the table and snapped the pencil back into his arm. “We’ll. I’ll let you know when I wake up. Somehow. Because I don’t have a phone. I’ll just—I’ll see you after work tomorrow.” He pushed his way off the bench, belatedly checking to make sure he had his wallet and keys.

Tryst’s eyes were still stupid and pitying. He could hear it in his voice when he said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come? We could both sleep—”

“No,” said Leenik harshly. “I sleep better alone anyway.” It was a lie, and a transparent one—both Aava and Tryst knew he slept best tangled up with someone, if not multiple someones, but he _knew_ Tryst wasn’t going to be able to not talk to him if he came and he couldn’t. Deal with that, the entire idea was so exhausting he wanted to cry. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Bye.”

“Sleep well,” Aava called after him, and Leenik did everything in his power not to hear it as mocking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is from walk the moon's anna sun, which is one of the first songs on my geelentine playlist.
> 
> there's probably only one other part but? who knows? some stuff will happen I promise. after all, they boys have a ~romance to engineer~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pronoun note: Leenik's agender in this, and sometimes uses "he" and sometimes "they" pronouns (and maybe occasionally she). This is reflected in the narration, hope it is not too jarring!

Leenik woke up aching and dry-mouthed, like some of their hangover symptoms had waited to hit until after they’d slept, and hauled themself out of bed and into the shower with a furious, single-minded _forward_ motion. They were not going to spit on the favor Tryst did them by failing to show up to work and get fired anyway.

They kept the water scalding hot and ran their hand over their head, subconsciously replicating the soothing motions that Tryst took with them when they was upset, and then dropped their hand, realizing, and turned to clean their stump instead, gently washing away the layers of dead skin that built up when they wore their arm for too long.

They drew on eyebrows and wore a wig to work, one of their less femme ones to avoid the looks but it still served as—symbolic disguise, shifting them sideways into someone else for a while, and they could feel themself relax as they settled it firmly in place. It was fine. They’d work the day, have their physical therapy session with Zero. They would see Tryst and probably Aava after, maybe they’d call Bacta—Bacta who didn’t hate them, they reminded themself—and they’d continue to plan their romantic shenanigans, and Tryst would be distracted by that and they’d never have to talk about what hungover, sleep-deprived idiot Leenik Geelo might have said over breakfast.

Work—after they remembered to fake a cough—was actually pretty nice. Some old lady brought in her hard drive to be fixed and insisted upon showing Leenik all her pictures of her dogs once they’d fitted it back into her computer, and someone else brought in an ancient and _fascinatingly_ broken DVD player that they spent a good four hours on and that the client was so relieved to have fixed that they gave Leenik an actual, honest-to-god walkman and told them they could keep it if they got it working again. They did, without too much trouble, and stole a pair of headphones and a CD of _Now That’s What I Call Music 93_ from the dollar junk bins outside the pawnshop on the way to the bus stop.

They got to the gym early, buoyed up on the music in their headphones and the satisfaction of a few hours of doing good work with their hands.

Tryst was leaning against the wall by the doors of the gym. His profile was to Leenik as he stared out over the field behind the gym, the late afternoon sun slanting through the golden fall of his hair. He was stripped to the waist, his shirt tied around his hips pulling his joggers low, and his thumbs in his pockets pulling them even lower. As Leenik approached they could see the gleam of sweat on his skin, exertion defining the lines of his muscles and pulling their gaze everywhere at once.

They shook their head. Tryst was a disaster like 80% of the time, but god, sometimes he really knew what he was doing. They tugged out their earbuds. “You're early.”

Tryst looked at them and smiled, not his calculated flirtation smile but his genuine, happy-to-see-you one, wide and a little stupid and so warm it turned Leenik’s knees to jelly. “Hey.”

Leenik stuck their hands in their pockets so they wouldn’t tug him in and kiss him. They _really_ wanted to, but it would kind of fuck up the whole plan if Zero found the two of them making out against the wall. Probably. “You’re early,” they said again. “The plan was you would show up after, right—”

Tryst shrugged, stepping away from the wall a little. “You said we’d meet up after work,” he said. “Anyway, I barely remember the plan, so I came up with a new one.”

Leenik rolled their eyes at him. “You better hope Zero gets here fast, or all your sweat will dry.”

Tryst looked down at himself. “Oh, this? It’s not sweat, I poured a water bottle on myself a few minutes ago. Psh, you actually thought I was going to do enough exercise to get _sweaty,_ it’s like you don’t even know me.” He shifted closer, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Which. Speaking of things you apparently don’t know.

Leenik blinked at him. “What?”

Tryst took a breath, “Leenik,” he said, “I—oh, shit, there’s Zero, just follow my lead.”

He moved sideways, casual, presumably so that Leenik wouldn’t be blocking Zero’s view of the sun-kissed expanse of his chest, and put one hand on his hip to draw attention to the—honestly ridiculous—curve of his back above his ass. “So anyway, Leenik,” he said, louder, “I was just stopping by to see if you’d changed your mind and could come to that _thing_ later.”

Leenik was peripherally aware of Zero coming up behind them. They squinted at Tryst, trying to figure out what he wanted them to say. “Uh,” they hazarded, “no? No, I still can’t come to that thing.”

Tryst pouted ridiculously at them, and Leenik fought not to either roll their eyes again or kiss him, probably the two emotions they felt most in regard to Tryst. Zero moved around them unobtrusively to go into the gym, and Tryst seemed to notice him for the first time, turning in a swirl of blond hair. “Oh, hey, Zero.”

Zero turned, looking a little like a deer in headlights. “Uh,” he said, “hey?”

Tryst shoved his hands into his pockets, and Leenik caught Zero’s gaze dip, just for a second, as Tryst’s joggers slipped dangerously low, and then flick back up to his face. “Are you busy tonight? There’s a dance party I wanna go to but my date’s being lame.”

Zero looked to Leenik, who gave him an exaggerated shrug. “So you’re asking…me,” he said slowly, like he was just trying to get the facts straight.

Tryst shifted toward him, his flirting-smile firmly in place. “Sure,” he said. “Aava might come and I thought it’d be fun for the three of us to hang more.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets to do a sort of laughing shimmy at him. “Get our dance on.”

Zero coughed, his eyes flicking to Leenik and back to Tryst again like he wasn’t sure what was happening to him. Leenik sympathized. “Sure,” he said, “I mean—what time?”

Tryst grinned, dazzling. “I’ll send you the invite!” He pulled out his phone. “What’s your number?”

Zero gave it, and Tryst bit his lip in faked concentration while he put it into his phone. “Sweet,” he said. “I’ll see you later then!”

“Yeah,” said Zero, still bemused. “Later. Leenik, I’ll see you inside?”

Leenik nodded at him. “Yeah, just give me a sec.” When the door had closed behind Zero they turned to Tryst. “Okay, I’m impressed,” they said, “but what’s this dance party, I wanna go to a dance party—”

Tryst winked at them. “That’s the genius,” he said, “there _is_ no dance party.”

Leenik wrinkled their hand-painted brows. “What?”

“I photoshopped a screencap of an old Facebook event to have today’s date,” Tryst explained, “and then we’re gonna show up, and there’s not going to be anything happening, and I’m gonna be like _oh no,_ and then I’m gonna invite him and Aava back to my place to have our _own_ dance party, and we’ll have a little wine, get a little loose, Aava will leave—or she won’t, her choice—”

“Tryst,” said Leenik, interrupting, “if you pull this off I will be _very_ surprised. He’s probably just gonna leave when he realizes it’s the wrong place—”

“Uh, should I be insulted right now?” Tryst asked, pulling back from them, face offended. “Do you not think I just did an expert job of hooking him like a fish? Because I think I just did an _excellent_ job of hooking him like a fish.”

Leenik smiled at him despite themself, reaching out to touch his jaw. “You did good,” they said. “You’re right, you’ll pull this off.” After all, it didn’t exactly matter if he didn’t. It was nice, sometimes, to remind yourself how low the stakes were.

Tryst huffed in satisfaction. “Thank you.” He leaned in to kiss Leenik, starting to pull back after a quick fond press of lips, but Leenik tangled both their hands in his hair and kept him close, kissing him deep and slow.

“Oh,” said Tryst when Leenik finally released him, leaving their foreheads tilted together. “Mm. I guess I did do good.”

Leenik smiled, soft and just for him. “Yeah,” they said. “You stupid gorgeous asshole.”

Tryst sighed against their mouth and pulled back. “I’ll let you get inside. Be home later, okay, so Aava can fill you in when she leaves?”

Leenik nodded at him. “Got it.

They watched Tryst go, and then turned and went inside.

Zero had set up at the near end of the long, dojo-style room they used for their sparring sessions, so Leenik skirted around the edge of the mat and dropped their stuff on the other side, watching him. He’d removed his motorcycle jacket and had the neck of his shirt pulled down so he could unbuckle the straps on his left shoulder to remove his arm. It was longer than Leenik’s, and where Leenik opted for a tone that pretty closely matched their own light brown skin Zero had gone the dramatic contrast route, his arm black and chrome with blue highlights. He set it carefully by his gym bag, leaning down to retrieve the hand wrap from inside it, and then straightened up, staring out the door. “What the fuck?”

Leenik peered past him, expecting Tryst to be back and doing something ridiculous, but instead a tall, freckled young man with a swoop of red hair pushed his way through the doors. He was wearing a motorcycle jacket that looked a lot like Zero’s, but white leather to his black, and walked with a cane tipped in rose gold. He went up to Zero and said something in a low voice, and Zero responded, looking baffled.

Leenik picked up their own hand wrap and started winding it on, keeping an eye on Zero and Blue as they did so. They watched Zero follow Blue over to the bleachers, still talking, and give him a hand up so Blue was sitting, looking down at him. They watched Blue say something else, and heard Zero burst out in incredulous laughter, which Blue looked pretty offended by. They watched Zero realize he’d taken his arm off without wrapping his hand first, watched Blue take it from him and inexpertly try to wrap the cloth around his wrist, heard Zero go, “Oh my god, I’ll just ask Leenik to do it,” heard Blue respond an insistent, “no, I _got_ it.”

They finished taking off their arm and jogged over to the pair. “You guys good?”

“Us, oh, yeah, we’re fine,” said Blue immediately, dropping Zero’s wrist like he’d been burned. “Hi, Geelo.”

“Look who joined us,” Zero muttered unreadable, and walked away, starting his stretches.

Leenik cocked their head at Blue and thought, _well, when opportunity knocks._ They hopped up on the bleachers beside him. “What brings you here?” they asked, and resisted the urge to add, _did you also think we would be shirtless?_

Blue looked at them sharply over the rims of his glasses. “I can’t be the only visitor you get sometimes,” he said. “Surely Trystan visits you.”

“He hasn’t, actually,” Leenik said mildly, filing that instant comparison away as evidence.

“Well,” said Blue, “perhaps he should make more of an effort to support you in your continued recovery.”

“Oh, you’re here for moral support!” said Leenik. “That’s nice, Zero might need it when I kick his ass.”

Blue gave him a withering look. “I highly doubt that’s how today’s match is gonna go.”

Leenik smiled at him. “Oh me too,” they said. “But since _my_ boyfriend’s not here I have to be my own cheerleader.” The emphasis was slight enough to pass as accidental, but still present enough for the tips of Blue’s ears to redden. “You could have made a bit more effort, though, no pom-poms, no skirt—”

Blue gave him a thin but seemingly genuine smile. “Now that especially sounds like a gimmick Trystan would pull.”

Leenik shrugged their good shoulder. “True,” they said, “but I think if that were happening on the sidelines I’d maybe be more distracted than supported.” They paused. “Maybe we both would be.”

Blue frowned at them. “What, uh, what does that mean?”

“Oh,” said Leenik casually, “Zero and Tryst are going dancing tonight. And, y’know, with Tryst being Tryst, dancing...” they trailed off suggestively.

If Blue’s ears were red before they were practically scarlet now. “I see,” he said steadily. “That’s. Interesting–I didn’t realize—they’re not even _friends,_ I don’t think I’ve ever even seen them interact, what do they have in common—”

“Y’don’t need much,” said Leenik cheerfully. “Anyway, nice chat, gotta go get my ass kicked.”

They walked rapidly balance-beam style across the bleachers until they came to be level with Zero, who was waiting for them. “Does he always sound like he’s about to give a TED talk about how smart he is?” they asked, dropping to the mat.

Zero laughed, low in his throat. “Yeah,” he said, “pretty much.”

The two of them took their stances opposite one another, weight distributed evenly between their right legs, shifted slightly forward, and their left, shifted slightly back. “How do you stand it?” Leenik asked, voice casual, and then threw themself forward, swinging their arm in a wide, telegraphed arc at Zero’s unprotected right side.

Zero barely moved, just catching their wrist with his right hand. “You get used to it,” he said, and then twisted to avoid Leenik’s knee, redirecting the blow meant for his crotch so it glanced off his hip. He tried to shift his stance and his grip on Leenik’s arm for a throw, but the angle was off; Leenik managed to twist their wrist free and dance loose from him again.

“Yeah,” they said, a little more winded, “but like, why bother?”

Zero shifted his weight, head cocked, and then closed with them, throwing a jab at their throat which Leenik knocked easily away. “Does Valentine always sound like the first two minutes of a seventies porn flick? Why get used to that?”

“Well,” said Leenik, smirking and twisting a leg behind and through Zero’s to trip him, “sometimes he sounds like the last two minutes.” Zero snorted, stumbled, caught himself, and swept a leg sideways that Leenik leapt over. “But honestly,” they continued, “we’re _dating,_ there’s y’know, benefits to that.”

Zero grabbed for them, and for a minute they traded blows, both of them too concentrated on what they were doing to speak. When they broke apart again they were both breathing hard, Leenik’s head ringing from a blow to their jaw, Zero wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist.

“There are benefits to being friends with Blue, too,” he said, and then actually _blushed_ when Leenik huffed a laugh at him. “Not—shit. That’s not what I meant.”

“Sure,” said Leenik, schooling their face into something less amused with an effort. “If you say so. You're friends with benefits in a nonsexual way, that's totally a thing.”

Zero narrowed his eyes. “Maybe a low blow, but like, those in nonsexual houses, buddy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Leenik flapped their hand, unbothered, then had to dodge as Zero took advantage and aimed a kick at their stomach. “But that’s a matter of drive _,_ if I was into sex more often we’d be fucking like bunnies.” They aimed a feint at Zero’s temple, then managed to get a shot into his ribs, pulling the blow but still feeling Zero’s sudden exhalation hiss against his shoulder. “So,” he said, withdrawing and squaring up again, “unless you’re telling me both you and Blue are ace, which I would be very offended that you hadn’t filled me in on, it’s not exactly comparable, comprende?”

Either Zero’s blush darkened or he was just having to work harder. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Why are we even—what are we even talking about?” He shoved forward and kicked at Leenik again, rapid, swapping feet. “We’re _friends,_ what’s your problem? I don’t come for your friends this way—”

“You probably should,” Leenik said matter-of-factly, shifting backward out of the way, “my friends are idiots.” They stopped abruptly, catching Zero’s foot rather than dodging, and pulled sharply so Zero had to hop forward or be pulled off balance. Leenik tried to sweep his other leg, but they didn’t quite have the reach—Zero was so goddamn tall _—_ and Zero leaned into them, using Leenik’s grip on him to shift his center of gravity, and then jumped, pushing off Leenik’s palm, his momentum pulling his leg free of Leenik’s grasp and his other foot nearly snapping into their chin on the way up and over them.

Leenik swore, less dodging and more just falling over backward to avoid him. Zero tucked as he came back down, his uninjured shoulder hitting the mat in a neat forward roll that carried him back up onto his feet. He turned and offered Leenik a hand up, blowing out a breath. “Look,” he said as Leenik took it, letting him pull them to their feet. “Blue’s Blue. I’m me. Stop pushing.”

Leenik shook their wig out of their eyes. “Sure,” they said. “Okay.”

+

“What the fuck happened in your session?” Tryst demanded, striding up to the table in the Bluebird where Leenik and Aava were sitting. He was wearing a loose black button up with a corset cinched tight over it, and gold eyeliner, and was about five inches taller than usual due to the dark purple knee-high platform boots he’d pulled over his stupidly tight black jeans.

He caught Leenik’s look. “What? Zero’s fucking _tall_ , we’ve been through this.”

Aava leaned over to regard him critically. “The purple’s too much, you should have gone for black boots. Is that my corset?”

Tryst half-smiled, half-grimaced at her. “It’s not... _not_ your corset,” he said. “I was gonna do a whole thing, you were supposed to notice _later,_ and then take it off me, maybe get Zero to pin me to a wall—now it’s all ruined.”

“I maybe told Blue about the dance party plan,” said Leenik guiltily. “But I didn’t mean for Blue to interfere _,_ I just meant it to make him more jealous when Zero showed up here tomorrow all—disheveled and hickey’d.”

“Yeah, well,” said Tryst sourly, “I was halfway through actually cleaning my living room when I got a text from Zero that he’s not coming, and then got a text from you, Aav’, to meet you guys here, and now what the fuck do I do with my night.”

Leenik shifted over to make room for him at the table, and Tryst collapsed moodily against their side in a rustle of silk.

“They _both_ compared the two of them to me and Tryst,” Leenik said, exasperated. “Independently! Unrelatedly!”

“You’re totally sure they’re not already dating, and like, trying to keep it a secret for some reason?” Tryst asked Aava. “This is ridiculous.”

Wordlessly, Aava held out her phone so they could see her chat history with Zero.

_b showed up to my session with leenik today_  
_he said something about wanting to see if he should learn martial arts and i laughed in his face but honestly, can you blame me_  
_Blue. Doing martial arts ???_

_not to mention it makes no sense to watch two people who are making shit up because they’re both missing the same arm when he’s got both still_  
_it threw me off so much just having him there watching like  
i’m sure i looked like a fuckign idiot bc I could just feel him staring_

_i know he records a lot of shit for his art films, do you think he was filming me?_  
_if he was filming me why didn’t he just tell me?_  
__  
:/

_aava?_

Tryst leaned back in his chair. “Okay,” he said. “So they’re not dating.”

“Literally why not,” demanded Leenik. “Like—Blue’s gay, Zero’s—bi, probably, certainly interested in men, _definitely_ interested in Blue, he got super flustered when I talked about them fucking—”

Tryst gave them an impressed look. “Surprised you managed to work that in.”

“Not my first rodeo, Valentine,” Leenik said, grinning at him. “But anyway, yeah, like—they spend all of their time together, every time Zero’s not looking at him Blue looks like he’s going to explode, what is stopping them?”

“Now, Leenik,” said Tryst, “let’s not be unfair, sometimes people are just idiots. What was stopping you and me?”

Leenik made a face at him. “Me being fucked up over wanting to have sex for the first time ever in my life with someone who is probably a sex addict and _definitely_ way kinkier than I ever thought I’d be interested in, and so constantly waiting for it to go away so that I wouldn’t be tricking you into an emotional relationship on false physical terms?”

“Hm,” said Tryst, smiling at them, “see, idiocy.”

“Also, for a while,” said Leenik, quieter, “not wanting to steal you away from Bacta.”

Tryst’s smile shifted just the slightest bit more complicated.

“Something tells me neither of those are the problem here,” Aava said. “I don’t know, boys, it might be time to back off.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” complained Leenik.

Aava studied her nails. “I was in when it was just about maybe getting Zero laid,” she said. “But it feels like we’re getting into some dicey territory.”

“Oh, c’mon,” said Tryst. “We’re not gonna, like, be mean to them. The worst that would happen if Blue gets his feelings hurt, and you don’t even like Blue.”

“I do like Blue,” Aava said. “But also I want him to want me to like him, so I don’t spread it around. You know?”

Tryst looked impressed. “That’s sneaky as shit,” he said, and then stopped. “Hang on, did you do that to me?”

Aava laughed. Leenik really liked her laugh—it always felt very genuine, an expression of delight from somewhere behind her many walls. “Oh, honey,” she said, leaning over to cup Tryst’s chin. “For _years._ ”

Tryst turned his head swiftly to try and sink his teeth into the heel of her hand, and Aava slapped him across the face. Tryst sucked in a breath, his eyes lighting up.

“Guys,” Leenik said plaintively, “the plan.”

Tryst looked between them and Aava, who arched a brow at him, and finally sighed. “Whatever, spoilsport. Leenik, now that Plan A is blown I think it’s time to call in Bacta.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do so elsewhere,” Aava said, relaxing from her predatory posture. “It’s about to swap over to club hours and we need the table.”

Tryst looked at Leenik. “We could just pop over to his place.”

“Right,” said Leenik, standing up and downing the last of their tea. “Let’s go.”

Tryst stood up to follow them, but Aava grabbed him by the chin again, pulling him in for a biting kiss. “Be in my bed when I get home,” she murmured against his jaw. “Lose the boots. Keep the corset.”

Tryst swallowed, nodding. “Right. Got it.”

He linked hands with Leenik as they left the Bluebird. It was walking distance from there to Bacta’s, and Tryst kept giving them little sidelong looks as they wound their way through the streets in the gathering dark. Leenik refused to look back. They weren’t an idiot—they knew it was only a matter of time before Tryst found another way to bring up their stupid outburst the day before, but. God, they wanted to put it off as long as possible.

Tryst opened his mouth to speak.

“We don’t have to keep figuring this out tonight,” Leenik said quickly. “If you want to go back and hook up with Aava—”

Tryst shrugged. “Nah, that plan’s already made. Besides, we’re halfway to Bacta’s place and I wanna see Tamlin.”

“And Tony,” Leenik added, more out of habit than anything else; they didn’t think Tryst had left him off maliciously.

“And Tony,” Tryst agreed, like the second half of a ritual, and Leenik thought maybe they’d avoided the topic successfully until, literally on Bacta’s doorstep, Tryst said, “Leenik.”

Leenik turned to him, trying not to cringe. “Yeah.”

Tryst gnawed on his lip, unconscious, a completely different gesture than his flirtatious, calculated lip-bite at Zero that afternoon. “After this, on the way back to your place, can we talk?”

Leenik closed their eyes against the rush of stupid, entirely unfounded panic. “Tryst. You know you can’t just say that to me without telling me what about. Even if you think I _know_ what about, even if _I’m_ pretty sure I know what about, you cannot be that vague with me—”

“Sorry, hey,” said Tryst, his wide, calloused palms coming up to cup Leenik’s face. “Hey. Look at me.”

Leenik opened their eyes.

The light above Bacta’s doorway lit the gold of Tryst’s eyes and that of his eyeliner the same warm hue. “I’m sorry,” he said, quiet. “It’s nothing bad. I just want to talk about what you said yesterday, because it made me think I haven’t been clear with you in ways I should be, and that lack of clarity is maybe hurting you. Okay?”

Leenik nodded, their own hands coming up to hold Tryst’s wrists, though they could only feel one of them. They turned their face to kiss the palm of the other one, just to extra confirm it was there. “Okay,” they said, because it was—it was better, anyway. It was still not concrete—if they thought about it too hard their brain could still probably twist it into Tryst breaking up with them—but they were about to walk into a room where they felt safer than almost anywhere in the world. It was okay.

“We could also just talk about it now,” Tryst offered, “if it’s going to make you anxious to wait.”

Leenik shook their head. “No,” they said. “I wanna see my son and nephew first.”

Tryst nodded, dropping his hands, and then leaned hard on the doorbell. “Bacta!” he yelled. “Open up! We’ve got a romance to engineer!”

+

“I dunno, you guys,” said Lyn. She was leaning against the dividing half-wall between Bacta’s kitchen and his living room, a glass of wine at her elbow. “I think Aava’s right, seems like Zero set you some boundaries there and it doesn’t seem great to just cross those for fun.”

“Oh come on,” said Tryst from where he lounged—in stocking feet, the boots had been left by the door by popular vote—on Bacta’s couch, Tamlin sitting between his knees. “Nobody even invited you.”

Lyn gave him a Look. “I was already here when you got here,” she said, and picked up her wine. “I made you _dinner—_ ”

“You didn’t,” Tryst said, “You said ‘we should have dinner’ and then Bacta and Leenik made dinner, you watched and opened a bottle of wine.”

Lyn conceded the point. “I opened you a bottle of _wine_ ,” she amended, in the same offended tone, but her eyes were amused.

“Sometimes,” Leenik said from the floor, where Tony was enthusiastically licking their face, “people set up boundaries for stupid reasons.”

“Yeah!” said Tamlin. “Like when uncle Bacta locks cabinets!”

Bacta made a disapproving noise and emerged from the kitchen in a pink apron and yellow dishwashing gloves. “I lock those cabinets because there’s dangerous stuff in there, buddy,” he said. “That’s not stupid reasons, you could get hurt.”

“Mmm,” said Tamlin, like he was thinking about it. “No, I think that’s dumb. No pain, no gain, right uncle Tryst?”

“That’s right,” said Tryst proudly, and then caught Bacta’s eye. “That, uh, that sure is the saying. Which applies to us totally disrespecting Zero’s privacy, but definitely does not apply to uncle Bacta’s many cabinets full of guns.”

“Many cabinets?” Lyn asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Two cabinets,” said Bacta, disappearing back into the kitchen and emerging glove-less with his own wineglass. “Two is not many, Tryst.”

“I mean, that depends on what we’re counting,” Tryst said. “Two is not many guns, I’ll grant you, but when it’s _cabinets_ of guns, well.”

Leenik buried their hands in Tony’s ruff, pressing their noses together. “Tony, why does no one but me care about the obvious romance that needs our guidance?

“You could call Neemo,” Lyn suggested. “Maybe he has some good ideas.”

Leenik sighed. “My phone’s broken.”

“Right,” said Lyn. “So. You’re just never going to contact him ever—”

“I will _,_ ” Leenik said, annoyed, “once I fix my phone.”

Tryst shook his head. “Let it go, Lyn, they’ve been like this for weeks.”

Leenik sat up, pulling Tony as far into their lap as a 50-pound Siberian huskie would go. “People survived very well for hundreds of years without being in constant contact,” they said, “I don’t know why it’s such a problem now when I see everyone I care about all the time anyway.”

“Anyway,” said Tryst, “enough about Leenik’s dumb boundaries, let’s talk about Zero’s.”

Leenik looked over at him; Tryst caught his eye and smiled slightly, reassuring.

“What I don’t understand,” said Bacta, “is how they even met. Do we know? Did Zero ever talk about Blue before—you know, Before?”

Leenik shook their head. “Not to me,” they said. “Maybe to Tony, but I don’t think so.” The dog _whurffed_ in their lap, craning his neck up to look at Leenik’s face, and Leenik scratched behind his ears. “Not you, baby,” they said softly.

“I mean,” said Tryst, like he was putting together pieces of a puzzle, “we only really started going to the Bluebird once Aava worked there, and I think Aava got that job through Zero, right?”

Leenik nodded. “Which is weird, because I don’t think _Zero_ works there, other than as a DJ some nights. He’s just always, like, around. Which makes sense, since he’s full-on obsessed with Blue, but how did that start?”

“So,” said Lyn, drawn in despite herself, “sometime After. Blue and Zero met and got instantly close enough that Zero could get Aava a job, like, a couple months later?”

“I mean, Aava’s hideously overqualified,” said Bacta. “Also, did Zero and Aava even know each other well back then? No, right?”

“Okay, so to revise,” said Tryst. “Sometime After, Blue and Zero met and got close enough that Zero figured that the Bluebird was a place Aava—who he also barely knew—would want to swap into when she had her quarter-life crisis and quit being a cop.”

“Or Synox did,” said Lyn pensively. “He might be the connective tissue here.”

“Who’s Synox?” Tamlin piped up. “Why’s he connecting with aunt Aava?”

Everyone—including Tony—looked at Bacta.

“Synox,” said Bacta slowly, “is someone I used to know when I was in the army, Tamlin. He and Aava work together now.”

Everyone—including Tony—looked at Tamlin.

“He’s got a funny name,” Tamlin announced. “Ssyyy-nox. Synox. Syeeenoxxxx. It’s good, I like it.”

“Great,” Bacta hissed at Lyn. “Now he’s going to be wandering around the apartment just going _Synox, Synox,_ like some kind of weird ghost, he did this with the word _chlorophyll_ for like six weeks—”

“Weird ghost?” asked Tryst. “Or manifestation of your subconscious?”

“I don’t like chlorophyll anymore,” said Tamlin.

“You know,” said Leenik, “it would make sense for Synox to be the connective tissue, since he and Aava and you all know each other. Maybe he also knows Blue, and Aava ended up at the Bluebird because _he_ worked there.”

“That still doesn’t explain how _Zero_ got in the mix,” Bacta said, ignoring Tryst. “Christ, this is complicated.”

“I just think if we could figure out how they met,” Lyn said,  “we might know why they're not dating and whether or not Zero’s boundaries are actually stupid.”

Leenik nodded, scratching Tony’s belly. “That makes sense to me.”

“Okay,” said Tryst. “So where do we start?”

“Synox!” said Tamlin happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's gonna be one more part of this & it should be up soon!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got long so there's gonna be another chapter!
> 
> warnings for discussions of familial death, car accidents, medical trauma, v brief needle mentions

It took them all several hours and another bottle of wine to coordinate the plan. Bacta put Tamlin to bed and Leenik and Tony shifted to the couch, where Tony fell immediately asleep in their lap, while Lyn, Bacta and Tryst bent their heads together at Bacta’s kitchen table. Eventually Tryst checked his phone. “Shit,” he said, straightening. “I gotta go.”

Bacta glanced at the clock. “Yeah, it’s getting late,” he said, and sighed. “I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this.”

Tryst gripped him by the back of the neck and pulled him in to kiss him firmly on the forehead. “It’s for your own good too, buddy,” he said against his skin. “Like it or not, sometime you’re gonna have to learn to be in the same room as Synox without having an aneurysm.”

“How,” said Bacta mournfully when Tryst released him, “and also why?”

Tryst ignored him. “Leenik,” he called, grabbing his keys off the table and tucking his phone in his pocket. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Leenik looked up from the sleeping dog in their lap, dread coiling in the pit of their stomach. “I, um.” This was stupid, they _knew_ it was stupid, every time they put this conversation off it got bigger and scarier in their head, it would be better to just do it. But.

Lyn yawned. “Leenik, you can stay here if you want,” she offered. “I know Tony’s missed you, and Tamlin would be delighted to have you around for breakfast.”

Leenik ran their hand down the slope of Tony’s nose, then looked at Tryst again. “You’re already late,” they said, trying not to sound pleading. “We, we’d be rushed, it wouldn’t be what you wanted—”

For a moment Tryst frowned at them, looking like he might argue, but then he relented. “You’re right,” he said, crossing to Leenik and giving them a softer version of the same forehead kiss he’d given Bacta, his fingers sliding down to their jaw. “Stay. It’s okay.”

Leenik looked up at him. “Yeah?”

Tryst smiled, and Leenik couldn’t tell if he it didn’t quite reach his eyes or if they were projecting. “Yeah.” His fingers caressed Leenik’s chin for a moment, and then he stepped away to grab his boots, slinging them over his shoulder. “Bye, y’all,” he said. “I’ll see you Monday for Plan B, stage 1.”

“Unfortunately,” muttered Bacta, and Tryst chuckled his way out of the room.

“Bye, Tryst,” Lyn called after him.

“Did he just walk out into the street with his shoes hanging over his shoulder?” Bacta asked after a second.

“Are you actually surprised?” Lyn asked. She stretched, wandering over to the door of her room. “Leenik, you want to be with me or with Bacta?”

Leenik looked at Bacta, who was gathering up empty wineglasses with the air of one weighted down by a thousand ghosts. “You, please,” they said. “Bacta’s got enough company with all those demons hanging around.”

Bacta shot them an unimpressed look. “Very funny. You want me to write that one down so you can report it to Tryst tomorrow?”

“Oh man,” Leenik said immediately, “if you wouldn’t mind—”

Bacta gave them the finger, and Leenik laughed soundlessly as they extracted their legs from under Tony, disturbing him as little as possible. “G’night, Bacta.”

“Goodnight, Leenik,” said Bacta. “Love you, sleep well.”

Leenik swallowed against a sudden and totally unwarranted lump in their throat, staring at the broad expanse of Bacta’s back as he moved through a kitchen that, not so long ago, had also been theirs. “Love you, too,” they said softly, to Bacta and Tony and this quiet little shared world, and followed Lyn into her piece of it.

Lyn had changed into a tank top and boxers and was pulling her estrogen needle back out of her thigh when Leenik came in. They shared her mirror for a moment to remove their wig, then sat down on the edge of her bed to pull off their shirt and unbuckle their arm. They were pretty sure Tamlin hadn’t graduated to sleeping in their old room yet, so they could have slept there, and the immediacy with which Lyn knew they wouldn’t want to sleep alone, the ease with which she offered both her own and Bacta’s warm arms, coiled the lump in their throat even tighter.

Lyn settled on the end of her bed and reached out to trace gentle fingertips over the lines the straps of Leenik’s arm cut into the skin across their back, and the coiled-up-knot turned liquid. They took a ragged breath, face suddenly dripping and prickling hot, having to choose between wiping at it and holding themself upright with their hand on their knee, their prosthetic already disconnected enough to be useless.

Lyn saved them from making the choice by wrapping her arms around them and pulling them backward against her. “Hey,” she said, her face against their cheek. “Leenik, hey.”

Leenik scrubbed at their face with their hand. “I’m okay,” they said, “I’m—I’ll be okay.”

“I know,” said Lyn, and kept holding them tight.

+

The next morning was the first time in weeks Leenik actually regretted not having a phone, because Tamlin started tossing Tony little squares of his pancakes to catch in his mouth and he could have gotten a) an incredible snapchat video and b) a perfect new lock screen. Also he kind of wished he could text Tryst to apologize, but. It was mostly the pancakes thing.

He didn’t have a shift until later that afternoon, and he stopped home before it to shower and change. He didn’t bother putting his arm back on for the bus ride home, carrying it and his wig in a shopping bag hooked over his good shoulder. It was nice sometimes to move through the world without its added weight pulling him lopsided, and he liked the way people looked at him and then looked back, like they thought he might—with his shaved head and lack of eyebrows and detachable arm—be some kind of mannequin come to life. Sometimes he purposefully stiffened his movements, especially if there were kids around.

Tryst was gone when he got home, though not long gone, judging by Aava still lounging at the kitchen table in one of his kimonos, left open, and the purple boots from the night before. She looked up from her coffee when Leenik let himself in. “Morning.”

Leenik looked her up and down. “Good night?” he asked.

She made a sort of _not-bad_ face, taking a sip from her mug. “I’ve had better,” she said, watching his face. “Tryst was...distracted.”

Leenik winced. “Sorry,” he muttered, coming over to kiss her temple in apology. “My fault.”

Aava hummed, accepting the kiss but perhaps not the brush-off. “We agreed this stuff wouldn’t bleed over,” she said. “If he has tension to work out I’m happy to fix that, but I’ve no interest in being his therapist.”

Leenik pulled back from her, trying to figure out what to say. “I know,” he said at last. “I’ll talk to him soon, I just.” He swallowed. “I’m, um. Having a hard time.”

Aava studied him. “He loves you very much, you know.”

“I know,” Leenik said softly, and then, just in case she didn’t: “He loves you, too.”

Aava smiled at him, but her eyes were a little sad. “Poor bastard.” Leenik chuckled, and Aava kicked out the chair opposite her. “Sit, if you’ve got time before your shift.”

Leenik did, so he sat, and accepted the mug Aava slid him. Moving directly from Bacta’s to Aava’s—Bacta’s to _his_ —was always jarring, like sipping juice after brushing your teeth. Each flavor was good, but the moment where they met, before your tongue adjusted, was almost painful. He felt suddenly like he should have found a way to invite Aava to breakfast with Tamlin, but reminded himself that baby steps were probably necessary.

“Have you decided to give up on Zero’s love life?” Aava asked, raking her hair back from her face and peering at herself in the camera on her phone.

Leenik shook his head. “Hell no. Plan B stage 1 goes into effect tomorrow during Synox’s morning shift.”

Aava raised an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“We’re gonna ask him how Blue and Zero met,” Leenik explained. “Lyn thinks if we can figure that out, we might be able to tell why they’re not dating.”

“Huh,” said Aava, propping her chin on her hand. “Possible, I guess. I wonder if he knows?”

Leenik shrugged. “If he doesn’t, we go to Plan B stage 2.”

“Why not just call it Plan C?”

“Because it’s not a totally discrete plan from Plan B,” Leenik said, feeling himself slip a little into Lyn’s cadence as he repeated her naming conventions. “It’s still asking someone about the way they met, not as different to that as it is to Plan A, which, if you remember, was Tryst seducing Zero. Which isn’t totally off the table I suppose, it’s just been shifted.” He frowned. “So that would be Plan C, I guess, as well as Plan A.”

Aava shook her head. “Has anyone ever told you you make things needlessly complicated?”

Leenik smiled slightly at her. “Mostly,” he said, “Tryst tells me I don’t make things complicated enough.”

+

“I'm afraid I can't help, boys,” said Synox, sounding genuinely regretful. “When I interviewed for the bartender job here Zero was already stuck to Blue’s side.” He gathered up some empty mugs. “I believe Blue is in the back, though, if you wanted to ask him yourself.”

“That’s, uh, that’s okay,” said Bacta. “Thanks anyway—”

“Hey, no, we definitely want that,” said Tryst.

Bacta shot him warning eyes. “We haven’t _planned,_ ” he hissed, “Tryst—”

Leenik shook his head, cutting him off. “Please do tell him to come out here, if you wouldn’t mind, Sy?”

Synox shrugged. “Sure.”

He vanished into the back, and Leenik grinned at Tryst. “See? I told you we were friends.”

“What was that?” Tryst asked Bacta. “You know Plan B stage 2 is asking Blue—”

“Not without _preparing!”_ Bacta ran his hands over his head. “You guys,” he said, “Blue is gonna be a _totally_ different animal than Synox. None of us really know him, what if he doesn’t buy the cake angle—”

“He’ll buy it,” Tryst insisted. “He loves Zero, it’s gonna make total sense to him that we also love Zero and want to appreciate him. So long as Leenik is right about the birthday thing, which Synox probably would’ve called us on—”

“Unless Synox doesn’t _know_ Zero’s birthday—”

“I’m right,” said Leenik, a little hurt.

“If we’re wrong about the birthday then Blue will just tell us we’re wrong about the birthday. Calm down, Bacta, this isn’t exactly life or death—”

“I’m _right,_ ” Leenik insisted again.

Bacta shushed him, and Synox came over to their table with Blue in tow. He was wearing a white apron, but it was perfectly clean; Leenik had a hunch that he’d put it on when Synox came to fetch him, just for show.

He ran a critical eye over the three of them, taking in the unfinished pie at Tryst’s elbow, and the little curled up pieces of napkin Leenik had fidgeted into a pile, and the circles on the placemat under Bacta’s coffee cup as if they were character flaws—not quite disdainful, but certainly gathering information. Unlike at the dojo, where Leenik had managed to catch him off guard, Blue in the Bluebird was in his element, superior and secure in the knowledge that no matter what he did or said to customers they would continue to come back for the best fucking coffee in the city.

It also probably helped that he was currently without Zero; maybe it was because Leenik knew him so well and had heard him talk so much shit about Blue, but there was something about having Zero next to him that made Blue an inherently more vulnerable and embarrassing person.

“You wanted to talk to me?” he asked, after glaring just a little too long at Tryst.

Tryst smirked at him. “We wanna give Zero something nice.”

Leenik kicked him under the table. “Zero’s birthday is coming up, and we’re planning on making him a cake,” he said to Blue, “and it's gonna have like, a diorama, representations of how Zero met the important people in his life, but it's a surprise.”

“A surprise?” Blue looked between them. “Like, a surprise birthday party? Why haven’t any of you mentioned this to me?”

Leenik winced, looking at Tryst. He hadn’t thought about how Blue would probably want to _help,_ and definitely hadn’t planned on throwing any actual parties.

“Aava’s in charge of the rest of the party,” Tryst said, smoothly throwing their partner under that particular bus. “We’re just the cake committee. And we realized,” he spread his hands wide. “None of us actually know how the two of you met and became such fast friends.”

“Fast friends,” Blue said, like he was rolling the alliteration around in his mouth. “You know, my birthday is actually sooner than Zero’s.”

Synox raised his remaining eyebrow at him. Leenik wondered if he was actually only raising one, of if he was raising two and one was invisible, or if the difference between those things kind of became moot when you were missing almost half your whole face.“If they were to make this diorama for you, sir, it would just be one large coffee mug.”

“Except for the bit about Zero,” Leenik added helpfully, to keep them on track.

“Hm.” Blue tapped a long finger against his lips, leaning back against the chair of a separate table behind him. “Maybe just some general best friends imagery? Half-heart BFF necklaces, things like that? Maybe a little Bluebird, it is my symbol, you know.”

Leenik looked at Tryst, who looked at Bacta. “I mean,” said Bacta, “I suppose in a pinch, but we’re really going for this whole _origins_ angle…”

Blue pushed his glasses up his nose. “I appreciate your dedication to theme,” he said slowly, “But I struggle to find anything in our particular origin that could represented well in _cake_. At best it would be hideous, at worst massively triggering, and absolutely in poor taste.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I wish you luck, though. Send me sketches. I have an excellent eye for aesthetics.”

Tryst muttered, “clearly.”

Blue stopped, giving him a suspicious look.

“He's being sincere,” Leenik assured him, half honestly and half to set Tryst up. “We know you had a hand in designing this place, and it's beautiful in here.”

Blue straightened up, mollified, and then Tryst said, “oh, no, I meant because of Zero.”

Leenik expected Blue to get flustered, or say something snippy about the attempted seduction, but instead he smiled, his eyes lighting up. “Thank you,” he said. “Though really the only hand I had in Zero’s good looks was his arm, the rest was God and his own decent sense of fashion.”

Leenik blinked at him. “You helped design Zero's arm?”

“Mm.” Blue looked at them over the rims of his glasses. “You in the market for something more flattering?”

“I think Leenik’s arm is quite nice,” Bacta said loyally. “Maybe not as flashy as Zero’s—”

“Hey,” said Leenik, “it can be plenty flashy—”

“There was that, like, two week period where you bedazzled it,” Tryst agreed. “That was flashy as hell, and also awesome.”

“Yeah, that was good,” Leenik mused. “I should do that again.”

Blue made a face at them. “Nevermind,” he said. “I rescind my offer.” He picked up his cane and walked away, muttering “ _bedazzling,_ ” to himself in disgust.

Synox turned to follow him, giving Bacta a nod. “Sorry that didn’t work out,” he said. “But not really surprised. I believe they both like the mystery remaining. Perhaps also they don't wish to be reminded of a time before they were…” he waved a hand, “whatever they exactly are. ”

“I get that,” said Bacta, and then flushed when Synox looked at him. Leenik expected him to look away, but he raised a shoulder and held Synox’s eyes.  “Sometimes,” he said, “you don't like looking back at who you were before you met the people who make you better.”

Synox watched him for a moment, head on one side, and then nodded. “Indeed. A feeling I also understand.” He gave the rest of them a nod. “Boys. Geelo.”

He left, and Bacta deflated a little. Leenik saw Tryst grip his knee under the table. “That was good,” he said. “Right? That was good?”

Bacta nodded, uncertain. “It was either good because I managed to tell him I’m not a deadbeat drug addict anymore, or bad because I might have implied I never want to talk or think about the time when we actually knew each other.”

“But like, you don’t want to talk or think about that time,” said Leenik. “You never want to.”

Bacta looked at him, his crooked eyebrows drawn down over his eyes. “Not with you two idiots.”

Tryst shook his head. “Or with Lyn, or with Tamlin, who only even heard Synox’s _name_ last night—”

“Obviously I’m not going to talk about the circumstances of my dishonorable discharge with my five-year-old _son,_ Tryst,” Bacta said, biting the words off extra short the way he did when he was faking anger to cover up something else.

“I’m just saying,” Tryst said, “seems weird to be sad that you can’t talk about the one subject you’ve been avoiding talking about for the last five years of your life.”

“Maybe I wanted to talk about it with him,” said Bacta. “Maybe there are exactly two people I would like to talk about it with and one of them is dead.” His palm drifted very briefly over the center of his chest, hovering just for a moment over the oldest and most impressive of his tattoos.

That took the wind out of Tryst’s sails, and for a moment they all just sat, each curled inward with thoughts of their own. Leenik ran a thumb over the brow above one of his eyes, feeling the prickling first signs of his eyebrow growing back. _Sometimes you don’t like looking back at who you were before you met the people who make you better._ Sometimes you don’t like looking back at who you were before you lost the people made you you in the first place.

Finally Tryst said, “I gotta say, ‘hideous and triggering’ is not how I envisioned Blue describing their first meeting.”

“I know! What does that even mean?” Leenik asked plaintively.

Tryst stabbed a fork into his pie. “Maybe it was violent. Ooh, maybe Zero saved Blue from falling off a building.”

Leenik stared at him. “Why is that your first thought? Zero can’t _fly—_ ”

Tryst rolled his eyes, tapping his fork against his lips. “A _burning_ building, then—”

“He’s not fireproof, either!”

“That's it,” said Bacta decisively. “There's nothing else for it.” He looked at Leenik. “You're gonna have to go back to Zero.”

Leenik sighed, but Bacta was using his _assigning missions_ voice. “Okay,” he said. “Next session, I'll do my best.”

+

It turned out he didn't really even have to try.

Zero was quiet and focused the whole session, coming at Leenik repeatedly and intensely, and Leenik met him at that level, romantic inquiries pushed to the back of his mind by more immediate concerns like not getting the shit beat out of him. They fought to a standstill, and finally Zero relaxed out of his fighting stance and just folded quietly to the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him, propping himself up on his arm.

“Leenik,” he said, looking up at him, “did you say something to Blue about me and Tryst?”

Leenik sank down next to him.  “Um,” he said, “I mentioned you were going dancing, which,  when Tryst is involved--”

“Sure,” said Zero, “but it’s not like he could think anything would’ve actually happened.”

“I mean,” said Leenik, drawing it out, “I think something probably would’ve happened. Like. Tryst’s Tryst, you’re hot, it’s not much of a stretch—”

Zero scoffed. “Pretty sure my ‘hot’ days are over.”

Leenik stared at him. “What? Why?”

Zero looked sideways at him, like it should have been obvious.

“Oh,” said Leenik. “Oh I see, you think being a mysterious scarred black-clad stranger with a tragic past makes you _less_ attractive, I get it.”

“Yeah,” said Zero flatly, flopping down on his back,“I do, because it does. Body scars are one thing, but my face?”

“Tryst would _absolutely_ have slept with you,” said Leenik. “Which now that I’ve said it isn’t really the reassurance I meant it to be, considering Tryst.” He lay down carefully next to Zero. “Um. Why did you ask about Blue?”

Zero sighed. “He got super weird after our session last week,” he said, “kept asking me questions about Tryst and making me do weird shit for him. That’s why I cancelled, he was being so—” he made a frustrated gesture and repeated, “weird.”

Leenik licked his lips. “Zero,” he said carefully, “I know you said not to push, but.”

Zero ran his hand over his face. “I know,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense from the outside.”

For a long, silent moment Leenik thought that might be all he got. And then: “He was just—there, you know?”

Leenik looked sideways at him, but didn’t say anything.

Zero was staring up at the ceiling. The network of scars running along his throat and jaw spread almost finger-like up his cheek, pulling the corner of his mouth and the skin around one of his dark eyes slightly downward. Leenik thought it made his resting face kind of sad, and his smile nearly always sardonic. Now he was somewhere between, his eyes shifting like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to be looking at. “After the crash,” he said. “In the hospital.”

“Oh,” said Leenik.

It had been almost four years since the truck jack-knifed on the highway and slammed into the side of Leenik’s brother Venton’s car, killing him instantly and crushing Leenik and Zero—sitting shotgun and right-hand-back-passenger respectively—into the concrete barrier between lanes. They’d been coming back from a music festival, driving too quickly on rainswept roads to outrun some idiots they’d swindled at pool at the hotel bar, almost 500 bucks in Leenik pocket. Tony’s girlfriend Char had walked away physically unscathed, but had kept walking; Leenik hadn’t seen her since a half-remembered glimpse of her face through the hazy back window of the ambulance.

Leenik hadn’t much cared—he’d had Lyn and Bacta and Tryst at the hospital when he woke up with his body irreversibly changed. He’d never really thought about who would have been there for Zero.

“Oh _,_ ” he said again.

“I didn’t even know him,” Zero said. “He was in the next bed, laid up after being shot in the knee in a hit-and-run, and he just—he wouldn’t shut the fuck up _._ ” He stretched his arm upward, spreading his hand wide and grasping like he was trying to catch the fluorescent light high above. “I’m lying there, one of my closest friends dead, bleeding out the side of my face, missing my god damn arm, and this freckle-faced, blue-eyed kid won’t leave me the _fuck_ alone.”

Leenik rolled onto his side so he could watch his face, not wanting to say anything and interrupt this rare explanatory mood.

“He kept asking me shit,” Zero said. “What I did, what happened to me. I couldn’t really talk about it at first, so I tried lying to him. Told him all sorts of bullshit to get him to stop asking, but.” He chuckled, his eyes shifting fond. “He never believed any of it. Maybe because it wasn’t tragic enough, or cool enough. Blue’s only easy to lie to if you tell him what he wants to hear.”

He sighed, and dropped his arm. “Cut to him recovering, as much as he’s ever gonna. It was the same day I got all the shit off my face, I wake up to his bed empty and I think. Well. That’s that, then.” He shook his head. “He strolls in five minutes later in a _suit_ with a fucking gold-topped cane and looks me straight in my Harvey-Dent-ass face and he says, ‘If you tell me what really happened to you I’ll hire you as my bodyguard when you get out.’”

Leenik blinked at him. “He’ll what.”

“That’s what I fucking said!” Zero said, turning to meet his eyes, his smile curling upward in remembered incredulity. “Apparently the little shit had done some research and figured out I had, you know, a bit of a _reputation,_ and he didn’t appear to care that like half my body was gone or mangled beyond belief. Hell, he probably thought it’d look cool to have my terrifying visage looming over his shoulder.”

“No,” Leenik said, “but like, why would Blue need a _bodyguard?_ He’s just some kid, I know his family owns the Bluebird but it’s a coffee shop and a club, it’s not like it brings them millions or earns the ire of anybody dangerous—”

Zero shook his head. “ _Blue_ owns the Bluebird, and it’s like—one of at least fifteen buildings he owns around the city. To hear him tell it, the hit-and-run wasn’t accidental, but targeted. I still have no idea how he makes most of his money, so honestly? Maybe he’s right.”

“What the fuck,” said Leenik.

“Yeah,” said Zero. “Yeah, there’s more to the little twink than meets the eye.”

Leenik flopped onto his back again to process, and so he could free his arm up to run his hand over his face. “So—wait, did you say yes?”

Zero’s voice shifted soft again. “Yeah,” he said. “I said yes. And that agreement—that promise I thought was a joke? It’s probably the only thing that kept me alive.” He licked his lips. “Just. Having something to work toward, to get better for, even if it was stupid.”

“Zero,” Leenik said, “I—I’m sorry—”

“Nah,” said Zero immediately, cutting him off. “You lost your _brother,_ dude, and otherwise we were in the same boat. I don’t blame you for withdrawing into your own shit. Not like we were close to begin with. I’m glad you had your family, I just.” He shrugged. “I credit Blue with helping me find mine.”

Leenik sat with that for a while, and Zero seemed content to sit with him. They would have to move soon—the gym was closing down for the night, and Leenik had no way of letting anyone know he was going to be late—but for the moment he felt. Solid. He knew about survivor’s guilt, had talked Bacta through it and felt plenty himself, would again if he thought too much about Tony, but he thought there should be a name for this, too, a kind of survivor’s pride, an unintended but steady link between two people who had beaten odds they should not have been able to, fallen as far as it was possible to fall and risen again, learning to live.

“Wait,” he said suddenly. “Does he actually _pay_ you?”

Zero looked embarrassed. “Um. Yeah.”

“For _what?”_ Leenik asked, delighted.

“Mostly to hang around and be scary,” Zero admitted, “but that’s part of why I go so hard with you every week, in case it ever gets more serious than that.” He sighed. “I’ve thought about asking him to stop—it doesn’t feel right for him to basically be paying me to be his friend—but then I would have to. You know, have a conversation with him where I explained that I actually like being around him, and why.”

Leenik raised his eyebrows at him. “And you don’t want to have that conversation with him because…?”

Zero gave him a look that said _fuck off_ without his lips moving.

“C’mon,” Leenik cajoled. “You’ve told me this much, what, you want me to just _infer,_ because let me tell you pal I can make some _wild_ inferrals—”

“Ugh, god,” said Zero, “please don’t infer anything, I don’t want to know what that means.” He squinted at the ceiling again. “You remember when I said he was only easy to lie to when you’re telling him what he wants to hear? I honestly don’t know what he wants to hear. I don’t know why he keeps me around, I don’t know what he wants me to _be_ to him.”

“So don’t lie,” Leenik suggested.

Zero spat a laugh. “Hm. Nope.”

Leenik suddenly wished he was wearing his arm so he could throw both hands up dramatically. One just didn’t have the same effect. “ _Why?_ ”

“Because I don’t think ‘every time you smirk at me with your stupid smug mouth I want to bend you over my motorcycle and also you saved my life and taught me to care about shit again’ will go over well with someone who, at best, just thinks of me as a friend, and, at worst, thinks of me as an _asset,_ ” Zero said in a bitter, rapid rush.

Leenik gave a tiny internal cheer, and then said, “I mean, swap around some subjects and objects in that first bit and it’s basically how Tryst propositioned me.”

Zero sat up, staring down at him. “But you don’t want that,” he said.

Leenik sat up, too. “I mean, not _often,_ but it certainly helped open negotiations.”

Zero shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “Like - what am I really hoping for here? Blue's been on a single date in his whole life, he's not interested. I might as well keep my mouth shut and take his money, it's not like he can't spare it. ”

Leenik pushed himself to a crouch, then stood up. “All I’m saying,” he replied, offering Zero his hand, “is maybe it’s worth it to revisit your contract a little.”

Zero let him pull him to his feet. “God,” he said. “Don’t say it like that, it sounds like I’ll be asking him to pay me in blowjobs or something.” As soon as it was out of his mouth he appeared to realize what he’d said, and his eyes went a little wide. The color in his cheeks made his scars stand out white, like Tryst after he’d been severely slapped.

Leenik grinned at him, only a little meanly. “Hey man, whatever works.”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Geelo.” Zero shoved him in the bad shoulder, trying to unbalance him, and Leenik laughed, swaying away from him. Zero immediately reversed the motion and pulled him against his side, his arm around his shoulder in a sort of half-hug. “Thanks,” he said, quieter. “I haven’t really—put that into words, before.”

Leenik felt his mean grin soften and let it, smiling sideways at Zero. “It helps, right?”

“Yeah,” said Zero, “it—”

He stopped, staring forward, and Leenik followed his gaze to see Blue pushing his way through the doors of the gym for the second time in as many weeks. He stopped dead just inside them, and Leenik had a flash realization of the tableau he must be presented with: both of them tousled from their match, Zero with his arm around Leenik, their faces close, a blush—fading but still evident—in Zero’s cheeks. If either of them had two arms, they would have been embracing.

He slid his hand up Zero’s chest and wrapped it around the back of his neck, standing up on his tiptoes to murmur against his ear, “remember, don't be too quick to take blowjobs off the table.”

It had its intended effect—Zero went red again—and Leenik laughed softly, letting him go and dancing away from him, his back to Blue as he mouthed ‘good luck’.

“Leenik,” Zero hissed, and Leenik turned away from him, grinning, to meet the absolutely _frigid_ gaze of Blue.

He actually yelped a little. “Oh, hey, didn't see you there.”

“I'm sorry,” Blue said, his voice, if possible, even more icy than his eyes. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh, no, don't worry,” Leenik said innocently, “we were done.”

He skirted around Blue to retrieve his arm, but took his sweet time buckling it on so he could eavesdrop.

“You, uh,” said Zero, and then cleared his throat. Leenik felt it in his own—the cobwebs that clung for a bit after every time he talked about or even talked around trauma—but to Blue it must have read as even more embarrassment. “You're late, if you wanted to watch us.”

“I think I saw enough,” said Blue. “Are you coming with me, or do you have other plans?”

Zero ran a hand through his hair. He looked—lost, frustrated. “I figured I’d meet you back at the Bluebird,” he said, “I don’t—Blue.”

Blue twisted his cane so the end of it spun against the ground like a top, then caught it again, not meeting Zero’s eyes. “Yes?”

Zero drifted closer to him. “Do you wanna tell me what’s been going on with you?”

Leenik tugged the straps on his arm tight, moving as silently as possible, hoping they would forget he was there.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Blue said, and it was fascinating—Leenik could almost _see_ him trying to pull himself backward into the space he’d been the other day, standing calm and in control by the table in the Bluebird, fighting whatever gravitational field Zero had caught him in now.

“Blue,” said Zero, continuing to shift closer. “C’mon. This is stupid, you’ve been acting weird for weeks.”

“I,” said Blue, his throat bobbing, and then, with the air of a drowning man being pulled to the surface, “Aava’s planning you a surprise birthday party.”

Leenik froze halfway through pulling on his backpack.

Zero stopped his glacier-slow drift, staring at Blue. “She’s what? But your birthday is sooner than mine.”

“That’s what I said,” said Blue, too loudly, “but apparently no one wants to celebrate _me_.”

Leenik settled his pack hastily and fled.

“I hate surprises,” he heard Zero say, behind him, sounding so profoundly baffled that Leenik felt sorry for him. He wanted to kick himself for the stupid cake plan. If Blue hadn’t had that out, what would he have said? What was Aava gonna say about this surprise party being dumped in her lap?

“I told her that, too,” Blue replied, “or I tried, but she hasn’t texted me back—”

The gym door closed between them and Leenik, and he slunk guiltily to the bus stop. Overcomplicated indeed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just gonna. keep adding chapters bc i keep underestimating how much i have to say about these idiots
> 
> this is a bottle chapter. no, seriously, the entire chapter takes place in or around leenik and aava's apartment. sometimes it be that way. 
> 
> enjoy!

“She hasn’t texted you at all?”

Tryst shook his head, rocking back on his heels on the sidewalk and reflexively opening and closing his text messages. Leenik had found him lingering outside his and Aava’s apartment and joined him, both of them unwilling to breach the entrance as of yet and face their partner.

“If she hasn’t texted Blue back,” Leenik said slowly, “and she hasn't texted you, and she _can't_ text me—” He looked hopefully at his boyfriend. “Maybe she hasn't checked her phone?”

Tryst shook his head again, gnawing at his lip. “She updated her instagram ten minutes ago.” He held it out to Leenik. It was a mirror selfie of Aava in a sleek black jumpsuit, the white streaks in her hair freshly dyed and framing her face, curling up under the corners of her jaw.

Leenik wailed, “you _liked_ it? Tryst—”

“What?” Tryst took back his phone. “She looks great, what's the issue—”

“Now she's _definitely_ gonna text you,” Leenik interrupted. “Why remind her that you exist -”

“Leenik, Aava doesn't actually forget about me,” Tryst said, waving a hand, “she just, like, pretends to, as part of our whole, you know, thing.”

“Ugh,” said Leenik. “Let me see that post again.”

“You can't unlike it, she already got the notification,” Tryst warned, but handed him the phone.

“I know how instagram works,” Leenik grumbled, “I just want to see if I can tell anything about what she's planning to do to us.” He squinted at the picture, then froze. “Tryst.”

Tryst stared down at the phone in his hand, upside down. “What, what is it? Is she hiding a fucking machete or something -”

Leenik balanced the phone in his prosthetic and zoomed in on the lower right hand corner of the mirror. Aava’s bedroom door was open, showing just a sliver of their kitchen, and at the bottom of that sliver was an unmistakable black military boot.

“Bacta,” said Tryst, and then: “Bacta??”

“Bacta,” Leenik confirmed, disbelieving.

“What the hell.” Tryst took back his phone. “She texted Bacta before she texted us? Me?” His voice was odd, halfway between hurt and happy, landing solidly in completely confused. “She texted Bacta at _all?”_

“She texted Bacta and Bacta actually came over,” Leenik said slowly. “To her place. To my place. To our place, where he has _never_ been, not even once—”

“What’s happening?” Tryst ran his hands into his hair, shaking it out from his scalp out of stress. “Why? What is this? What’s she planning?”

Leenik just stared at him, too baffled to have anything at all to say.

Tryst took a breath, hands still tangled in his hair, holding his gaze for a solid, strength-gathering minute. “Right,” he said, and pulled out his keys.

They snuck as quietly as possible up the stairs in unspoken tandem, leaning in to press their ears to Leenik’s apartment door. Helpfully, it led directly to the kitchen, which usually just made it awkward when Tryst and Aava fucked against it, but was convenient today.

“—really think you could have come up with something better than _cake,_ ” Aava was saying.

“The worst part,” Bacta responded, sounding far more relaxed than Leenik had ever heard him in Aava’s presence, “was that we’ve actually used the birthday-cake-diorama plan _before_ and it worked perfectly. I mean, that time we were just trying to figure out someone Lyn had slept with, and we did actually have to make the cake—”

“You made a birthday cake about Lyntel’s sex life?” Aava asked, laughter in her voice.

“Mhm,” Bacta assented. “It was delicious, Leenik’s an excellent baker.”

“Aw,” said Leenik automatically, “thanks,” and then remembered he was currently eavesdropping on the other side of a remarkably thin door.

Bacta and Aava went quiet. Tryst hissed, “shut _up,_ ” reaching for Leenik to cover his mouth, and Leenik turned toward him to apologize, and Tryst’s fingers ended up mostly _in_ Leenik’s mouth, and they both kind of fell over sideways, and then the door opened.

“Hi,” said Aava, looking down at them. “Having fun?”

Leenik gave Tryst’s fingers an ungainly kiss and attempted to get up with as much dignity as possible, which proved to be none, because his boyfriend had opted instead to lounge on top of him and give Aava his sleaziest smile. “Lots,” he said. “Why, what are you up to?”

Aava rolled her eyes at him. “Nice try.” She offered them her hands and pulled them both to their feet. “Come on in, join the conversation you were enjoying so much from the outside.”

Leenik let himself to be pulled into his apartment alongside Tryst, though he hung back as much as Aava’s steel grip would allow. Bacta was sitting at his kitchen table, a wineglass at his elbow, and Leenik knew it would take him a minute to reconcile the wrongness of that, unfree his tongue and join Tryst and Aava’s banter.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tryst said, “we were clearly making out—”

“That would probably work on someone who doesn’t routinely see the two of you actually making out,” Aava replied dryly, “but either you’ve magically lost all your chemistry and comfort with each other or you were eavesdropping, badly, and Leenik’s incapable of not being flattered by a compliment.”

Leenik wanted to mutter something about not being _incapable,_ just polite, especially when the compliment came from people he cared about and especially especially when it was completely unsolicited, but he opened his mouth and what came out was, “Bacta’s here.”

Bacta raised a hand. “Yeah,” he said, “Hi, buddy.”

“Hi,” said Leenik, and sat down in the chair next to him. “Hi. Why?”

“After you guys decided Aava was planning a birthday party without her knowledge,” Bacta said, “I texted her.”

“You texted _her,_ ” said Tryst, perching halfway in Aava’s lap. She wrapped an absent arm around his waist and picked up her wine with her other hand.

Bacta shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I figured it was only fair that she at least have warning,” he said. “So she could figure out a way to slither out of it.”

Leenik glanced at Aava to see if she minded the vaguely insulting choice of words, but she didn’t seem to, giving Bacta a nod.

“Okay but,” Tryst said, “why are you here?”

Bacta ran a hand over his head. “Well,” he started, but Aava interrupted.

“Leenik, you had a session with Zero today, right? How’d it go?”

Leenik blinked his way out of his ongoing cognitive dissonance and tried to figure out how to possibly sum up his session. “Um,” he said, and decided it might be best to start at the end, with the stuff that wasn’t all tangled up in trauma and also didn’t feel wrong to talk about. “We have a problem. Blue told Zero about the party.”

Tryst blinked. “The fake party that we’re not throwing, featuring a fake cake we're not baking?”

“We are throwing it,” Aava said coolly, “and you’re definitely baking that cake.”

Tryst twisted around in her lap to stare at her, and she pushed him firmly off her lap and into the last remaining chair. He accepted the shove gracefully, taking a moment to rearrange his limbs comfortably before turning back to her.“I’m sorry, what?”

“We’re throwing the party,” Aava repeated.

“ _That’s_ why I’m here,” Bacta said. “She told me she was interested in actually putting something together for Zero, so I offered to help.”

“Why?” said Tryst, and then answered himself: “No, nevermind, I know why, it’s because you love party planning.” He turned to look at Aava again. “I meant that why for you.”

“Because Zero deserves it,” Aava said simply, “and it sounded fun.”

Leenik licked his lips. “You’re not mad at us for dropping this on you?”

Aava’s eyes were cool. “Did I say that? I don’t believe I said that.”

Leenik swallowed. “Right,” he said. “Great.”

“I _do_ love party planning,” Bacta confirmed, “and, you know, you two said I should try and get along with Aava, and this seemed like a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.”

Tryst regarded him for a long moment. “Thank you,” he said at last.

Bacta nodded at him.

“One of them’s a bluebird,” said Leenik.

Bacta blinked at him. “What?”

“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” Tryst said, picking up Aava’s wine and Leenik’s thought at the same time. “Kill two birds with one stone, Blue, the Bluebird, there’s definitely almost something there—”

Aava smoothly stole her wine back before he could take a sip. “But now Zero knows about the party.”

“And we still don't know how they met,” said Bacta, “which is gonna make it hard to do the cake.”

Leenik ran his fingers over his head. “I um. I do, actually.”

Tryst’s eyes lit up. “You did it? You got Zero to talk?”

“You beautiful spy,” Bacta breathed. “I can't believe you didn't say so immediately—”

“Yeah, seriously,” Tryst agreed. “Way to bury the lede.”

Leenik bit his lip. “I don't um. Actually want to tell you about it?”

Tryst and Bacta stared at him with twin expressions of confused betrayal.

Leenik sighed. “Look, there's part of it that's funny. Like. Really fucking funny.” He imagined Tryst’s face on finding out Blue literally paid Zero to follow him around all the time. “But a lot of it isn't, and it was shared in confidence, and I don't really feel comfortable just passing it along willy-nilly.”

“Leenik. Leenik. Leenik,” Bacta said, increasingly pained, like he was trying to figure a way around a barrier he would otherwise respect.

Tryst threw his hands up in the air. “This was the whole point, you can't just successfully complete the plan and then not divulge—”

“Did he actually say you couldn't tell us?” Bacta asked, like he’d seized upon the answer.

“Ooh, good question,” said Tryst, “is this, like, implied confidence, because the rules there can be shakier—”

Leenik made a frustrated noise, curling his fist against his head. “It was after the crash!”

His friends went silent like they’d been doused with cold water.

“Like,” Leenik continued harshly, avoiding their eyes, “pretty directly after. So. That explains ugly and triggering.” He swallowed. “I, uh, I can confirm Zero wants to fuck Blue though, in case that was ever in doubt.”

Aava shook her head. “Super wasn't,” she murmured.

Bacta quietly reached out and pulled Leenik in so he was leaning against his shoulder, palm curling warm around the back of his neck.

“Okay,” said Tryst. “Okay. So.” He pushed himself a little bit back from the table, like he needed the physical space to think. “We figured out the backstory, but it gives us zilch to work with, because it’s firmly in the don’t mess zone. We accidentally planned a birthday party—”

“You accidentally forced _me_ to plan a birthday party,” Aava cut in coolly.

Tryst winced. “We accidentally forced Aava into planning a birthday party, a surprise birthday party, that the surprise-ee accidentally found out about.” He picked up the empty wine bottle, messing and tearing at the label. “You know,” he said, “if this were a real birthday party and the person being celebrated found out, would you cancel the whole thing? Or just throw the party anyway without the surprise element?”

“Depends,” said Bacta, “on how much I cared about the person involved and how much work I’d already put into the party.”

“Lots,” said Aava, “and none. Yet.” Her voice was distant, but Leenik could tell it was because she was thinking—she was staring into the middle distance, her eyes unfocused. Suddenly she moved, picking up her phone and rapidly typing something before putting it to her ear. Tryst started to hiss, “who are you--” but Aava quelled him with a glance and turned away, saying brightly into the phone, “Hey, Zero.”

Leenik stared up at Bacta. Bacta stared at Tryst. Tryst stared at Leenik. They all looked back at Aava.

“Yeah, I got some texts from Blue you maybe heard about. Mhm. I know.” She paused, listening, absently messing with the tips of her hair. “Yes, I know you do. It was a lie. I had the boys lie to him.”

Bacta looked wildly at Tryst. “Is she about to blow our whole thing—”

“Or,” Aava continued, talking over him, “I guess more misdirection than lie. You see, the party’s actually for him.”

Bacta stopped talking, his mouth snapping shut.

Aava smirked at him, and made an assenting noise into the phone. “Yeah, it is sooner. And I know he spies on pretty much everything that goes down in the Bluebird. It would be next to impossible to plan anything there without his knowledge, plus he's got a persecution complex, so making him think we were skipping over his birthday to plan yours fits right into that worldview.” She took a sip of her wine. “It is funny that he literally immediately told you, though. I knew he couldn’t keep it from you for long but less than a week—” She stopped her eyebrows going up. “Yeah, he just found out. Why?”

“Blue told Zero about the party to get out of talking about feelings,” Leenik whispered to Tryst and Bacta. “If we hadn’t told him this dumb fake secret they might be _dating_ by now.”

“Yeah, no,” said Aava into the phone, “it definitely doesn’t explain the rest of his weird behavior. You mentioned he was being weird after the first time he came to your session with Leenik, right?”

Bacta nodded. “Right,” he muttered to Leenik. “No more telling Blue fake secrets—”

“Or real secrets,” Tryst added.

“Or real secrets,” Bacta agreed, “so that next time Zero confronts him he has to talk about his feelings.”

“Yeah,” said Leenik, “that’s how that works, once you run out of other people’s secrets to throw at people you have to start throwing your own secrets.”

Tryst gave him a knowing look. Leenik expertly avoided it.

“Yeah,” said Aava into the phone. “Listen, I just wanted to give you a head’s up, but I’d love to talk to you more about this in person, do you want to get a drink later? Somewhere other than the Bluebird, obviously.” She paused, listening. “Oh, that’s a great idea, I haven’t been to the Anywhere Room in months. Yeah. Right, when do you think he’ll be done with you? Okay, great, I’ll see you in a couple hours, just text me when you’re done. Cool. Bye, hon.”

She hung up and raised an eyebrow at their stares. “There.”

“There,” Tryst repeated, “there what, what did you just do?”

“Planned a drinks date with Zero,” Aava said, “and solved your problem for you. Oh, I should text Blue back.” She opened her phone again.

“Text Blue _what,_ ” Tryst said, “if you tell him the party’s for him it’ll just be the same problem reversed—”

“Obviously she’s not going to tell him the party’s for _him,_ ” Bacta said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Who knew you were the smart one?” Aava said, but there was no bite in it. She finished texting and slid her phone back onto the table. “I should think it would be obvious to schemers like you two, but clearly _you’ve_ got no idea.” She swung her legs up over Tryst’s lap. “Leenik? Come through for me, babe.”

Leenik hadn't moved from where he was still leaning against Bacta, because Bacta hadn’t yet moved his hand and the touch was anchoring. “You’re going to let Blue believe the party’s for Zero, and Zero believe the party’s for Blue,” he said slowly, “and then what, throw them a joint party?”

Aava inclined her head. “Their birthdays are almost exactly a month apart. This way they each help me make the party fun for the other, I can openly ask questions about their taste without suspicion, and some aspect of the surprise is still maintained.”

Tryst frowned. “But what if they compare notes?”

Aava thought about that. “Blue might talk to Zero about what I talk to him about, but Zero will think it’s all lies I’m feeding him to throw him off. And Zero won’t talk to Blue about what we talk about because he won’t want to blow what he thinks is the real surprise.”

“That’s actually pretty clever.” Bacta’s hand slid down Leenik’s spine and away, and Leenik straightened, too impressed by Aava’s ingenuity to really mind.

 _That_ implied insult did seem to rankle; Aava gave Bacta a sour look. “I do what I can with what I’m given.”

“Oh, come on,” said Tryst, stealing her wine again and managing to keep it this time. “Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy that, going all parlor scene on us.”

“I did enjoy it,” Aava admitted. “And I intend to continue to enjoy this. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have preferred to be consulted beforehand.”

“Consultation requires, like, forethought,” said Leenik, “which you pretty much know is not really our strong suit.”

Tryst drained Aava’s wine. “There’s only one thing beginning with _fore_ that I’m good at,” he said, and winked at her.

Bacta muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

Aava looked unimpressed. “Could be better at that, too.”

“Rough,” muttered Leenik.

Tryst sucked in a breath, laying a palm on his chest. “You wound me.”

“Yeah,” said Aava, “because _I_ am very good at it.” She checked her phone. “Speaking of, I’ve got time before I have to get ready to meet Zero...”

Tryst was pushing himself to his feet before she finished trailing off. “Right.” He twiddled his fingers at Leenik and Bacta. “See you.”

Aava gave Leenik and Bacta a nod before disappearing with him into her bedroom and closing the door.

Bacta finished his wine in one swallow. “So they just. Do this.”

Leenik nodded distractedly, expecting any moment for his discomfort with Bacta in this space to return now that they were alone, but it didn’t. He let himself relax, bit by bit.

In contrast, Bacta appeared to just get more uncomfortable. “Should we, like, leave—”

Leenik blinked at him. “I mean, I live here,” he said. “You can leave if you want, but you definitely don’t have to.” He found he didn’t want him to, remembered Tryst’s easy _you two miss each other_ in the Bluebird the week before. “I could make tea, we could watch the new episode of Ghost Quest.”

Bacta shook his head sadly. “I’m like two or three episodes behind, Lyn never wants to watch it anymore.”

“Oh man,” said Leenik, “what’s the last one you saw?” He stood up, moving to the stove to put on the kettle. “If you haven’t seen the one with the raccoon I will _absolutely_ rewatch it with you, that shit was nuts.”

Bacta squinted, thinking about it. “No raccoons, the last one I watched was that one with the little house next to the bigger house, where the ghost would walk the path back and forth between the two so much she wore a track in the ground, and they found her shoe?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Leenik, grabbing two mugs from the shelf and prepping them with black and green tea for Bacta and himself, respectively. “That one was kind of boring, I thought.”

Bacta scratched his chin. “Trying too hard,” he agreed.

Leenik leaned against his kitchen counter, the comfortable silence slowly filling with the rising hiss of steam.

“Leenik,” Bacta said at last.

“Mm?”

Bacta looked at him sideways. “I’m glad you’re happy. Here, I mean.”

“Am I?” Leenik asked, startled. “Do I—do I seem happy?”

Bacta smiled at him. “Yeah,” he said, “You do.”

“Oh,” said Leenik, and moved to pour their tea. “Cool. That’s, that’s cool.” He concentrated for a minute on not spilling boiling water on himself, and then said in a rush, “I've, uh, been avoiding having a conversation with Tryst for like almost two weeks now, and it's fucking me up.”

Bacta folded his arms. “Why?”

“Because,” Leenik said, picking up his tea to bring it to him carefully, “I don't like not talking to Tryst, it makes me feel. Stupid, and alone, and like I'm going to pull away from everyone again, and like maybe if he's not trying to prevent that hard enough it’s because he wouldn’t care if I did.”

Bacta opened his mouth, and Leenik waved a hand at him. “I know it isn’t true but that doesn’t prevent me thinking it.” He sighed and picked up his own tea. “Plus, like. He is trying. I'm just being a dick.”

“That's the why I meant,” Bacta said, “I understand why you wouldn’t like not talking to your boyfriend, though I have to say it's kind of refreshing to hear Tryst is trying.”

Leenik closed his eyes, remembering warm hands on his jaw outside Bacta’s apartment door. “He's been good with me lately,” he said quietly, “really good, and I'm just.” He shook his head.

He heard Bacta shift. “So if he's been good, and you want to be talking to him, why aren’t you?”

From most people Leenik would have snapped at that, spat out _because it’s not that simple, because I’m not that simple, because not all of us can just want to do something and then do it._ But this was Bacta, looking at him steadily over the rim of his Spider-Man mug, the whole person of him somehow just a little too large in Leenik’s kitchen chair. Bacta got it; got who Leenik was and who Tryst was and what it was like to be with him. “Because,” he said, “along with being scared he won’t care enough I'm also scared he cares too much.”

Bacta raised his uneven brows. “More than you do, you mean?”

Leenik shook his head sharply. “More than he can sustain.” He licked his lips. “I just. I don't like when things change, and if they have to change, do we really have to point it out? It always makes the change feel bigger, harder to go back on.”

“Some things should change,” Bacta said mildly, spreading his hands to indicate where he was, the empty wineglass Aava had left behind.

Leenik blew out a breath but conceded the point. He also didn’t really want to keep talking about this, even though having Bacta just know it was happening helped. Maybe Tryst would talk to him about it, and Bacta could tell Tryst some of what Leenik said, and then he wouldn’t have to—

He cut that thought off with an effort. _Stop making your friends play human telephone_ , he reminded himself in Aava’s voice, and sipped his tea.

“Ghost Quest?” he asked at last, because some things shouldn’t change.

“Ghost Quest,” Bacta confirmed with relish, because some things didn’t.

About 40 minutes later they were pressed side by side in Leenik’s bed, popcorn balanced on Bacta’s knee and laptop on Leenik’s ankles, both of them losing their entire shit.

“No way was that a raccoon the whole time,” Bacta insisted. “No way. The bloody handprint--”

“Raccoons have hands, Bacta!” Leenik shouted. “They have little scary hands they use to wash their food, that's like raccoons’ _whole deal—_ ”

“No,” said Bacta incredulously, “ _no,_ but the noises it was making!”

“I don't know, okay?” Leenik wailed. “I don’t know, but that skull was hollowed out and that raccoon was _living_ in there.”

Tryst wandered in, naked, his chest and hips adorned with a new set of bright scratch marks. “What are you guys yelling about? Ooh, popcorn.”

He reached for the bowl, but Bacta snatched it back, glaring. “Not unless you washed your hands,” he snapped, “which you almost certainly haven’t.”

Leenik sighed. “Tryst, put on some pants or something, we have a guest.”

“That's not a guest,” Tryst objected, “it's Bacta.”

“Bacta who is currently a guest in my house!” He pouted at Tryst. “C’mon, you know I love to host, let me host.”

“Fine,” muttered Tryst, “but I want it noted this is a favor I am performing under duress.”

Bacta averted his eyes as Tryst bent to pick up a pair of Leenik’s boxers and pull them on. “So noted,” he muttered, shifting a little against Leenik’s side. “I’ll write it down when I get home.”

“Were you guys watching Ghost Quest?” Tryst asked, turning to peer at the screen on Leenik’s laptop. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, ghosts aren’t real.”

“Raccoons are real,” Bacta said, in the voice of a man haunted.

“Please don't remind me,” said Leenik dourly. “I’d managed to forget.”

Bacta left shortly thereafter, giving Leenik a significant look with a darted glance at Tryst in the middle, and Leenik really wished he hadn’t. The leaving was okay, especially since Tryst immediately shed the boxers and curled up warm and tired against his side, but the look triggered the most useless switch in Leenik's brain, the one that made him resist with all his might ever being told what to do.

Besides, Tryst was half asleep against him, running his fingers up and down Leenik’s thigh through his jeans. “Skin,” he requested. “More skin. Warm me.”

Leenik leaned down to kiss his hair and slid away to take off his arm and clean and moisturize his stump. When he returned Tryst was watching him, clear-eyed and unreadable.

Leenik stripped, dropping his clothes in a pile to deal with in the morning, and crossed to him. He ran a knuckle over Tryst’s cheekbone. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

Tryst hesitated, then shook his head, and Leenik slid under the covers with him. “Nothing,” Tryst muttered, closing his eyes, and then, lips against Leenik’s hip: “You're beautiful.”

Leenik swallowed hard and pushed himself downward so their bodies were aligned, curling hard into Tryst’s chest in an effort to become a part of this body he loved and escape the bullshit brain pulling him away from it.

+

They left Tryst asleep in their bed to go to work, but left a note pinned to the headboard that just said “Stay,” because they wouldn’t do this unless they boxed themself into it, and having Tryst in their home, expecting it, leaving nowhere for them to hide, was maybe the only way to do so.

It took almost an hour and a half for them to start regretting it. What if Tryst didn’t see it, and they got home ready for the conversation and he wasn’t there? How long would it take for them to convince themself to try again? What if he did see it, and thought it was about sex stuff and not emotional stuff? Tryst was always thinking about sex stuff, and that was kind of their dynamic when Leenik was in the mood, and if they showed up to Tryst naked in their bed—well, they'd _left_ Tryst naked in their bed, but soft sleeping morning Tryst and primed, seductive Tryst were two entirely different animals.

They ran a hand over their head and tried to listen to their customer rather than think about the way Tryst would react to their mouth against the new marks Aava had given him. Fuck. They kind of _were_ in the mood.

That sent them into an entirely different spiral, because now what, were they gonna risk their rare moments of sex drive on a conversation that might go badly, or force Tryst to ignore a conversation they should be having because they wanted to fuck? What kind of partner would that make them? God, why couldn’t they be normal about anything?

By the time they actually got out of their double shift they were a nervous mess, fumbling for their keys and hoping beyond hope that their boyfriend hadn’t seen the sign, that they could sneak past Aava and curl up and cry in a bed that maybe still smelled like him but was blessedly free of his actual self.

Their heart sank before they even had the door all the way open.

Tryst was sitting at their kitchen table, wearing his own clothes, his phone in his hand. He was even wearing _shoes._ He looked up when Leenik came in, frowning slightly. “You wanna hear something weird? Blue just texted me. How’d he even get my number?”

Leenik ground the heel of their hand into one of their eyes, trying to physically push the urge to cry back up into their brain. “Presumably from Zero,” they pointed out.

Tryst blinked. “Oh, right, I forgot I gave it to him when we were gonna bang.” He shook his head, looking back at his phone.

“What did he say?” Leenik asked, putting down their backpack in the corner and managing to wrench themself into some semblance of non-panic.

“Who, Zero?” Tryst asked. “He turned me down. You remember, he got weird because Blue got weird. Kind of a shame, really, maybe I should try again—

“No,” Leenik said, rolling their eyes. “Blue, when he texted you.”

“Oh, right,” said Tryst. “He asked what I got you for your birthday.”

Leenik made a face, collapsing into the chair opposite him. “What? Why?”

“Fuck if I know,” said Tryst. “He didn’t say anything after I told him I got you a set of romance novels and a dildo cast from my dick.”

Leenik frowned at him. “You didn’t, though,” they said. “I mean you did get me the romance novels, but you didn’t get me a Tryst-dick.”

“I know,” said Tryst, “but wouldn’t it be funny if I had? Especially because you’d likely only use it on me, which—does that count as masturbation?”

“No,” said Leenik with certainty. It was probably fucked up that Tryst’s idiocy made them feel this much better. “Do you think he was trying to figure out what to get Zero?”

“Probably,” said Tryst. “I hope he gets _him_ a dildo cast from my dick.” He laughed at his own joke, and then subsided, and then gave a different, darker sort of chuckle, one that was more than half sigh.

Leenik raised their eyebrows at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” said Tryst, “nothing, I just.”

Leenik waited.

Tryst shifted, his eyes meeting theirs. “I just think it's kind of ironic that everyone keeps using  us as this, like, baseline relationship when we can’t even have a conversation.”

“What are you talking about, we have conversations all the time,” Leenik said, too quickly.

Tryst made a frustrated noise. “Isn’t this why you left me that note?”

Leenik said nothing, and Tryst ducked his head to catch their gaze. “Leenik.  Please.”

They swallowed. “Can you not—say my name like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Tryst, “will you come up to the roof and let me talk to you?”

The stairwell to the roof was technically off-limits to residents, but was never alarmed. Leenik liked it up there—liked roofs in general, liked anywhere that got them closer to a wide night sky—and they knew Tryst did, too. And. They took the last of their panic and their reluctance in their mental fist and crushed it. Tryst had said _please._

“Right.” They stood up. “Let’s go.”

They pulled Tryst up the stairs by the hand, ignoring the little ghostly memories of doing this before, pushing him into the stairwell corners, hands in his hair, of Aava “catching” the two of them here and forcing Tryst to his knees for them. They brushed off how good and safe it would feel to just repeat that experience, lose themself in Tryst’s mouth and his need, and burst through the door at the top of the stairs into cool, clean night air.

They swing Tryst around so he was in front of them. “Okay,” they said, too sharp, “talking. Let's do that.”

Tryst swallowed. “Right,” he said. “Well - I guess - you said. The other day.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “What do you think I'm missing by having you as one of my two partners? Because. You implied—”

“I know what I implied,” Leenik snapped, because surely it was obvious. “I—everything! Sex more than once in a blue moon! Someone—easy, fun to be around, who won't literally run fucking screaming from a single emotional conversation for weeks, someone with two hands and eyebrows and a phone and-and even a remote grasp on how to be a person!” They licked their lips and gave a last-gasp attempt to control the tumble of words falling out of their mouth. “I get why you're with Aava, why that's a steady thing for you. She's so much of what you want in a partner, and I get that maybe in some ways I make up for the parts she can't or won't do but—if you're not fucking or dating other people, who makes up for everything _I_ can’t? Everything I'm not?”

“I don’t care about what you’re not,” said Tryst, stepping toward them, “I care about what you are. Leenik. You're my best friend.”

Leenik blinked at him. “What?”

Tryst drifted closer. “You're my partner, my boyfriend sometimes when ‘boy’ works for you, but first you're my best friend.” He lifted his hands to cup Leenik’s face. “I don't want to be with someone fun or with eyebrows or with two hands, because that person wouldn't be you, wouldn't—plan stupid fake birthday party plans with me, wouldn't kiss me after a failed seduction, wouldn’t come with me at three am when they're clearly exhausted to watch our drunk friend get a tattoo that he didn't even get.” He ran his thumb over Leenik’s cheekbone. “Wouldn’t look at me with a full-on fucking galaxy in their eyes.”

Leenik swallowed hard. Tryst’s face was so close, but they knew he wouldn't kiss them without being sure they were finished. Leenik always felt so worried about ruining the mood if they started kissing during hard conversations that they often just swallowed the rest of what they had to say, and Tryst wouldn't risk that. Leenik was grateful, distantly, in the part of their brain not caught completely in the way Tryst was _looking_ at them.

“Okay,” said Leenik with an effort, “but.” They shifted their eyes away from Tryst’s face to make it easier to think. “But. What happens when that's not true anymore?”

Tryst blinked at them, his hands falling from their face. “What?”

Leenik took a breath. “What you had with Bacta—”

“Leenik—”

“I used to look at you guys and think. Fuck, that’s it, you know? Like, Before, after Bacta got discharged and the two of you would run jobs, you were this. Unstoppable force, this _partnership,_ and then—”

“And then you almost _died,_ ‘Nik,” Tryst said, his voice caught in some gruff place between rueful and almost angry. “I don’t think you really take into account what that did to us, all of us.”

Leenik stared at him, feeling ice slip down their spine. “What?” They swallowed. “You—you’re saying that because of me, you and Bacta—”

“ _No_ ,” Tryst said hurriedly. “God, no, that’s not what I meant, I—” he leaned his head back to stare at the sky. It always helped him gather his thoughts if he could see the stars. “I meant,” he said slowly, “that suddenly we—all of us, me, Bacta, Lyn—we figured out we were, you know. Mortal. All the dangerous shit we were pulling because we thought staying alive was the same as _feeling_ alive, it had consequences. The heady rush of a con, the joy of successful job, it was illusion, and we fell out of it hard.”

Leenik let out a crazy little laugh. “Me, the queerest dude you know, scared you straight.” They stopped, something in Tryst’s voice pulling them out of their own wild swinging emotion and made them actually listen. “Wait, you—you think _you're_ one of the things Bacta was doing just to feel alive? Tryst.”

Tryst shrugged, jerkily, like a bird shaking water off its wings. “Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter—”

“I love Bacta, Leenik,” interrupted Tryst, eyes serious, though there was a rueful curl to his mouth. “Whether or not it's currently sexual or romantic or whatever, I’m always gonna love Bacta. And I think you know that, and I don’t think you really think this changes anything about it.” He raised a knuckle to touch Leenik’s jaw. “I think the part you don’t get is that I also love you.”

“I know,” Leenik tried to say, but their voice came out small, wobbling.

“Do you?” Tryst asked. “Because I think you might hear it but not believe it.” He leaned back against the railing at the edge of the roof. “Like. You know some of this, because you were there, but there was some time when you just. Weren’t. Weren't you, weren’t anyone, just a body in a bed, staring, and I,” he shook his head. “I went a little nuts.”

Leenik did know some of this. Most of it was from Lyn, in vague, muttered justification of her worried looks whenever Tryst got too wasted, but they remembered a little, when they let themself remember the hospital at all. Tryst at their bedside, slumped. Arguing with Bacta. Arguing with Lyn. Arguing with both of them loud enough that hospital security intervened.

“I was drunk for about—three weeks straight,” Tryst said, voice light, like he was talking about something that had happened to someone else. “And just—angry, so fucking angry.”

Leenik moved toward him. “At what?”

The corner of Tryst’s mouth was twisted upward but he wasn't really smiling. “You,” he said, “Zero, Chartreuse, Venton, anyone and everyone involved in allowing you to be in that car. Myself, for encouraging all our reckless behavior. Myself again, differently, for not being there and somehow physically preventing the crash.”

Leenik worked their voice through a throat rapidly tightening. “Tryst. It was no one's fault, it was a car crash, they, they happen all the time. It could have happened even if we were four of the most straight-laced trust fund kids you've ever seen—”

“I know, “ said Tryst, head on one side, the moonlight turning his hair into a waterfall of silver. “But it's much easier to deal with loss when you have someone to blame for it.”

Leenik stepped forward, burying their real fingers in the cool fall of Tryst’s hair and closing their hand tight, keeping him still and theirs.

Tryst raised his jaw, pushing just a little into their touch. “I don't want to lose you, Leenik,” he said, looking at them through his eyelashes. “This isn't, like, marriage we’re talking about here. No promises or contracts, I have no idea whether I'll want to go back to fucking other people one day. Right now, this thing with you and Aava, just you and Aava, is what I want. But.” He took a breath. “If it's not something you want, if it's gonna make you pull back from me like you have been the past few weeks—”

“No,” said Leenik.

“No?”

Leenik shook their head, uncurling and recurling their fingers in Tryst’s hair, their nails scraping against his scalp. How would that _if_ have been resolved? Leenik helping Tryst find someone else that he didn't even want, because they couldn't deal with actually having him? How stupid, how beautifully stupid and caring and backwards and utterly Tryst. They stepped forward and pulled his face close by his hair until they were forehead to forehead. Tryst’s breath puffed warm against their mouth, and they knew if they raised their eyes his would be closed, eyelashes fluttering in anticipation. God, he was so. Much.  “Love you,” Leenik said, shaky but honest, and kissed him.

Tryst sighed into it, his lips parting, and Leenik took advantage to lick into his mouth, pressing themself all along his body, like and not like the night before, not a desperate attempt to cross a self-imposed distance but a deliberate, certain erasure of it. Tryst’s hands settled on their hips and Leenik bit at his jaw, letting their hand fall to the buttons on his shirt and fumbling them open. “Oh,” said Tryst as Leenik dropped their head to taste the raised, raw skin at the joint of his neck and shoulder. “Oh, shit.”

Leenik hummed, heat coiling in the pit of their stomach, and scraped their teeth against his collarbone. They never missed their hand so much as when they couldn’t touch Tryst with it, their prosthetic too clumsy to be useful. They let it hang at their side and slid their fingers across the rapid-shifting, goosebumped plane of Tryst’s chest to catch and twist his nipple.

“Ow, _fuck,_ ” spat Tryst, half curse, half moan. “Leenik, god, I’m pretty sore—”

“Good,” said Leenik mercilessly. “I’ll have to thank Aava for getting you ready for me.”

They latched their teeth under Tryst’s jaw and continued to tease his nipple, hips flush to his, and Tryst’s hands slid down to grip their ass, pulling them minutely closer. Leenik gasped, ragged, jolting against him, and Tryst pulled back from them, eyes dark and wild. “You’re—you want—?”

Leenik laughed at him, breathless and open-mouthed. “You thought I was just doing you a favor?”

Tryst shrugged. “You do owe me one for putting on underwear,” he said, as if those things were at all equal. “Bacta wrote it down and everything.” He raised a hand to Leenik’s face, his thumb swiping over their lower lip. “But seriously. I didn’t—I don’t want you to feel like this means you have to be more sexual with me, or—”

“I was thinking about you at work today,” Leenik interrupted, speaking intentionally against the pad of Tryst’s thumb. “Thinking about what Aava must have done to make you so tired.” They ran their fingers over the curve of Tryst’s hip, finding the scratch marks and digging their nails into the same tracks. “To make you look so pretty.”

Tryst full-body twitched against them, his eyelids fluttering. “Fuck,” he said, heartfelt.

Leenik caught his gaze and held it, sinking to their knees. “I’m doing this,” they said, undoing Tryst’s belt, “because today, I want to.”

Tryst helped them push his jeans down his thighs and then settled his hands on their head, tilting his own back and breathing ragged to the sky.

+

He went home later that night, pulling on the same clothes he’d been wearing for two days with a grimace and giving Leenik and Aava lingering kisses and promises to check in on the party planning process the morning. Leenik stayed in bed for a while, feeling loose and comfortable in their skin in a way they hadn’t in weeks.

“Idiot,” they muttered to themself in the bathroom mirror. “Fucking moron, carrying that shit for no reason.” They tilted their head against the cool glass, closing their eyes.

“You two work things out?” Aava asked, when they wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later. She was sitting at the table with a bag of chips, her phone in her hand, and ran a knowing eye over their armless, half-clothed, unusually relaxed form. “Did I miss some fun?”

“I sucked Tryst off on the roof, one thing led to another,” said Leenik, “sorry, it was kind part of the whole thing, emotions and stuff. If I’m still in the mood next time we have some time I promise we won’t leave you out.”

Aava shrugged. “I’ve got my hands full with party bullshit anyway.”

Leenik cracked their neck. “How’s it going?”

Aava sighed. “Are there any two people who are so close to being in love who have less in common? The only thing they share is a pretty good fashion sense and that they each think the sun shines out of the other’s ass, while also talking relentless shit.” She held out her phone. “Look at this. That’s literally ten separate text messages about how Zero—an actual professional DJ who puts together demonstrably great shows _at Blue’s own club_ —has terrible taste in music.”

Leenik stole a chip from her. “Is that why he’s never at Zero’s sets?”

Aava hummed. “Maybe,” she said, “though I always thought it was because he knew he would be driven mad with lust if he ever saw Zero in his element like that.”

Leenik chewed thoughtfully. “I never got the impression that he was that self-aware. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to have to distract Zero or like, pay him twice.”

Aava looked at them oddly. “I get the distraction bit,” she said slowly. “Though at least with Blue’s knee there’s no chance of him dancing. But why would he have to pay Zero twice for a show if he were there?”

Leenik froze. Fuck. They’d been lulled into a sense of false security, forgotten that Aava didn’t know about the bodyguard gig. “Um,” they said, “no reason, nothing, forget I said that—”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Aava said, leaning forward, her eyes sharp, pinning them in place. “Leenik. You’re going to tell me what you meant.”

Aava had this way of  interrogating people that was unlike anything anything Leenik had ever seen, because she didn’t actually do anything to persuade you to tell her what she wanted to know. She just _looked_ at you and stated it, supremely confident, like a witch telling a fortune. A pronouncement of doom. An inescapable fact. Leenik wondered how many criminals had felt like they felt now before she gave up her career as a detective.

It was unlikely, they reflected, that any of them had had the opportunity to steal her chips right before their interview began, or had ever seen her naked, or knew how she took her coffee, or what her recurring dreams were about. They wished they felt like any of these things could be used as armor against that fucking gaze.

“Fine,” they burst out at last, collapsing into a chair. “Fine! But you can’t tell Zero I told you, and you _definitely_ can’t tell Tryst and Bacta, and you _absolutely definitely_ can’t tell Blue. I mean. Blue knows, but he can’t know I know, and he can’t know I told you. ”

Aava looked at them curiously. “Can I tell Sy?”

“No!” said Leenik, and then, “well, I guess, maybe. He seems like he can keep a secret pretty well.”

“He can,” agreed Aava immediately. “Go on, then.”

Leenik took a breath. “Okay. Um. Zero technically works for Blue. As his bodyguard.”

They expected Aava to laugh, or at least ask for more information, but instead she just raised her eyebrows and looked extremely thoughtful. “Well,” she said. “Well. That explains a whole hell of a lot.”

Leenik stared at her. “Does it? You mean why they hang out all the time?”

“No,” said Aava cryptically, “that’s not what I mean.” She didn’t elaborate, just propped her chin on her hand, regarding them.

Leenik felt pulled to fill the silence. “He said it gave him purpose,” they explained, “like, after the crash, but he doesn’t really know why he’s necessary. I’m not—I’m not really explaining this very well. Zero wants to tell Blue to stop paying him, but then he’d have to explain feelings, because he doesn’t want to stop hanging around him all the time, and also like. None of us can really afford to give up a source of cash, you know?” They ran their fingers over the rounded edges of their stump, over the weird ache-itch of their scars. “Though if Blue helped him design his arm maybe he just straight-up paid for it and Zero doesn’t have to worry about the installments like I do.”

Aava frowned. “Well now I’m conflicted. If they talk about feelings Zero’s going to stop being Blue’s bodyguard?”

Leenik blinked at her. “I don’t know,” they said, “I guess? Or maybe he’d continue but like, just as kind of a side gig to being his boyfriend.”

Aava sat back in her chair. “Huh.” She picked up her bag of chips and fished around in it. “Leenik, do you know why I quit being a cop?”

Leenik blinked at the abrupt subject change. “Um,” they said, “I always thought it had something to do with Griselle, but. All I know is you left and started working at the Bluebird even though you're insanely overqualified.”

Aava ate a chip. “You’re about a third right,” she said, “It did have to do with Gris. But technically I started working at the Bluebird, even though I am insanely overqualified, and then about a year later I gave up my badge.”

Leenik stared at her, puzzled. “Wait. You mean like it was a side job, and then you ended up liking it—”

Aava looked amused. “No, babe. Think this through.”

“You,” Leenik started, dawning realization pulling their voice lower, in case someone was hiding outside their kitchen door. “You were _undercover?_ At the Bluebird?”

Aava nodded very slightly. “For a while, yes.”

“Why?” asked Leenik, fascinated, and then remembered Zero’s dismissive shrug. _I still have no idea how he makes most of his money._ They went wide-eyed. “You were investigating Blue?”

Aava nodded. “Blue and his possible ties to some of the stuff that went down with Gris,” she said. “Which. Stopped being my case, after a while. Stopped being investigated at all, after a while.” She shrugged. “So I stopped being a cop.”

“But you stayed at the Bluebird,” Leenik pointed out. They leaned forward in excitement.“You're not—you're not _still_ investigating? A personal vendetta, secret even to your partners? Oh my god, I gotta tell Neemo.”

Aava finished the chips, crumpling up the bag. The noise was almost too loud, cutting through the secretive hush that had fallen over the room and making Leenik feel foolish for their lowered voice. “Nah,” she said. “I decided about eight months in that Blue had nothing to do with it, but I was interested, and. Once I cut all my old ties I needed new friends. Through the Bluebird, I made them.”

“So you’re the same as Zero,” Leenik said. “Blue gave you a family.”

“Did Zero say that?” Aava asked, and then smiled, her eyes softening. “That’s adorable.” She smoothed the chip bag out again, toying with it, considering. “And I suppose, indirectly, you're right.” Her smile faded into something more cynical. “When I flung myself bodily from a fascistic organization that didn’t care about my best friend being killed, the Bluebird was a good place to land.”

“But,” Leenik said, trying to put their picture of the last four years back together after it had been so neatly shattered, “hang on, you used your real name and everything.”

Aava lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I mean, yeah,” she said, “I couldn’t exactly cozy up to Blue under an assumed name when I was at most two degrees of separation away from Zero, who probably already knew who I was and if he didn’t could have found out from you or Tryst or Bacta by accident, in passing, and blown my whole cover.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and sighed. “Plus, I was pretty sure I was going to quit the force anyway. The easiest cover story was to just move the timeline up a bit.”

Leenik fluttered their hands distractedly. “Does Tryst know this? Tryst doesn’t know this, if Tryst knew this I would know this. Why on _earth_ have you never told us?”

Aava cocked her head. “Never thought it mattered, really,” she said. “Since Blue wasn’t wrapped up in what happened to Griselle it’s none of Bacta’s business, and really the only thing it changes is that I quit the force a year later than you thought.”

“Uh, yeah, and that you’re like twice as awesome as I thought,” Leenik said fervently. “Can I tell them? Tryst and Bacta? Or would it be bad if Blue and Zero found out?”

“Oh, no,” said Aava, “they know. Blue figured me out, like, month two I was there. How do you think I know he spies on everything that goes down in that place?”

“What,” said Leenik, “and he was cool with it? Oh sure, hot cop lady, just continue to work for my coffee shop and spy on all my mysterious criminal dealings—”

Aava laughed at them. “I think he was disappointed when I quit for real. I think he thought he was going to win me over and then use me to feed my old crew fake info.”

Leenik shook their head. “That's crazy. This is _crazy._ ”

“If I’d known it would delight you so much I would have told you ages ago,” Aava said, smiling sideways at them.

“Hang on,” said Leenik, “why would it be a bad thing for Zero to not be Blue’s bodyguard anymore? Earlier you said that you were conflicted about Zero and Blue getting their feelings sorted out if it meant Zero would stop being Blue’s bodyguard.”

“Mm, yeah,” said Aava, “because in the process of investigating Blue I found out he probably needs one.”

Leenik raised their eyebrows at her. “Why?”

“Kid’s got enemies,” Aava said simply. “You don’t commit like six counts of fraud, four of extortion and at least one extremely successful blackmailing without making a few.” She leaned her head on her hand. “Don’t look so impressed, I know for a fact your rap sheet’s just as long.”

Leenik waved their hand. “Yeah,” they said, “but mine’s all robbery and petty theft and like, weed possession. That’s some scary smart person crime.”

Aava gave them an odd look. “I’m not sure the average citizen would think armed robbery isn’t a scary crime, Leenik.”

“It’s a good thing we don’t know any average citizens, then,” Leenik shot back. “And anyway, those guns weren’t loaded.”

“Really? Which time?”

Leenik leaned back in their chair.  “All of them. Well, most of them. Bacta doesn’t believe in loading a gun unless you definitely intend to kill someone.”

“How responsible,” Aava said drily.

“Bacta’s super responsible,” Leenik said, out of loyalty and because he was. “He’s a great dad.”

“He’s a recovering drug addict who was dishonourably discharged and has committed multiple felonies,” Aava said, but it was mild, not the negation it would have been even a couple of weeks ago.

“Yeah,” said Leenik, “and a great dad. I wouldn’t have left Tony with him if he weren’t.”

Aava stared at them for a long moment, and then smiled, very slightly. Her phone buzzed at her elbow, and she picked it up. “Jesus.”

“What’s up?”

Aava showed them her screen. “I asked Zero what music Blue liked, since Blue wouldn’t shut up about his taste.”

There were three texts in reply:

 _Weird 19th century romantic composers_  
_???  
__Andrew Bird??_

“Lord,” said Leenik, “they are really not making this easy, huh.”

Aava sighed and stood up. “I give up,” she said. “I’m going to bed, I’ll try to figure out how to reconcile good house jams and Andrew fuckin’ Bird in the morning.”

Leenik snapped their fingers. “That’s the other bird!”

Aava blinked at them. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The other bird that we’re killing,” Leenik said excitedly, “Bacta, yesterday, he said killing two birds with one stone, and the Bluebird was one, and we couldn’t figure out who the other bird was, but there it is. It’s Andrew.”

Aava stared at them blankly. “Is this something I should be texting Tryst about?”

“No thanks,” Leenik said cheerfully, “I’ll just tell him tomorrow.”

Aava yawned. “Great,” she said, and turned toward her room.

Leenik watched her, the still-elegant fall of her hair, the tired line of her back beneath her kimono. “Aava.”

She turned to look at them over her shoulder.

Leenik licked their lips. “Are you happy?”

Aava turned more fully, leaning against the doorway to her room. “Am I happy?” she repeated, like the question had never occurred to her.

“Maybe, maybe it’s a stupid question,” Leenik stammered, “but. Just. Talking with Tryst, and. And thinking about the life you used to have, and how different everything is now, it made me wonder. You know. Overall, with the friends you have now. With your life. With Tryst. With me.”

Aava ran a hand through her hair, looking around at the apartment like the answer might be caught in a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling. “Yeah,” she said at last, as if coming to the end of a long journey. “Yeah, you know what, I think I am.”

Leenik smiled, the expression tugged upward from their heart at the tiny hint of wonder they could hear in her voice. “Good,” they said softly. “I’m really glad.”

Aava crossed to them in a few swift strides and pulled them into a quick, tight hug. “Thank you, Leenik,” she murmured against their ear, and released them.

They sat blinking in her wake. “For what?”

“For caring about my happiness,” said Aava, vanishing into her room, “and for being a part of it.”

Leenik let themself sit with that for a long while, warm against their chest like the perfect cup of tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i genuinely really think there's only going to be one more of these suckers but tbh i should know better than to trust myself on this
> 
> let's have a fuckin party


	5. Chapter 5

Leenik pried the plate off the back of the phone with his flathead screwdriver and laid it out on his workbench, making a face at the truly impressive amount of dust and dirt he’d revealed. He picked up his compressed air and started carefully cleaning it out in short, angled bursts.

“Gross,” said Angel, looking over his shoulder. “Your client doesn't really take care of their stuff.”

Leenik shook his head. “Nah, this one's mine.”

Angel raised a twice-pierced eyebrow at him. “You’re working on your own shit on company time?”

Leenik shrugged. “Itchy fingers. Sometimes I gotta steal something, even if it's just my own time back from the capitalist machine.”

Angel hummed, cracking her neck. “I feel that. You won't mind if I clock out early then?”

Leenik gestured around at the empty shop. “It's dead as hell, why on earth would I care?”

Angel grinned at him and slung her bag over her shoulder, vaulting easily over the counter and heading for the door. She turned to flash Leenik a peace sign and he said, “Oh hey, are you working later? Your other gig, I mean.”

Angel ran a hand through her short-cropped hair. “Yeah, I go on shift at 9, why?”

“Aava and I might stop in,” said Leenik. “We’re planning a thing and need a place away from prying ears.”

Angel gave him a sideways look. “Not sure anyone’s described the Anywhere Room as that before.”

Leenik flapped his hand. “ _Specific_ prying ears,” he clarified. “Might see if Tryst wants to come, too.”

“Oh, nice, I’ll warn Chris.” She gnawed at her lip. “No chance you can drag Lyn along, I guess?”

Leenik blew out a breath. “Not likely.” He had a flash of Bacta and Aava, talking cordially over wine. “Stranger things have happened, though.”

“Well, Zara’d love to see her.” She started to leave again, and then stopped. “Hey, if you wait to clock me out til the actual end of my shift I'll swing it so you drink free tonight.”

“Y’know,” said Leenik, “I was going to do that anyway, but now you can't take it back.”

“Thanks, L.” Angel gave him a wave and left.

Leenik waited a moment, then got up and flipped the sign on the door to _Closed._ His boss wouldn’t check in—he never did after three—and he wanted the solitude. He popped his stolen headphones into his ears and spun up the walkman again, losing himself in the small, precise movements of mechanical repair, in assessing damage and knowing how to fix it.

He’d just reached the end of the CD when his (new, uncracked) screen lit up at last and he popped his sim card back in, smiling to himself. He pulled up his most recent group-chat and sent a quick, _meet me at the anywhere room at 10? lets plan a party_ and an alien emoji and party hat emoji.

He scrolled down to a different number and sent (ignoring the messages he’d missed from two months ago), _hey wanna help me plan a romantic birthday cake_ and then a third, to which he just sent _sorry. but hey look i’m alive again <3 _

He hesitated, then copied that last one and sent it to Bacta and Zero as well. Then he went and unlocked the door, flipped the sign back to _Open,_ and started his CD over again.

Before his shift ended he received seven texts, each one making his phone buzz against the counter at his elbow. He knew it wouldn’t last, but right now, new again, the sound was pleasing—more visceral than a tone, a tiny felt thing that meant his friends were paying him attention.

Tryst had said, in their chat with Aava, _fuck yes, also hi <3\. _ Aava had simply said _see you there,_ but then privately messaged him _proud of you._ Neemo replied _absolutely yes, also where the hell have you been?_ and then _who’s the cake for?_ and then _wait is it for zero, i heard aava’s throwing him a party?_

Lyn and Bacta hadn’t responded yet. Leenik tried not to let himself worry about that.

Zero replied right at the end of his shift, when he was closing up. _dude. i don’t even remotely blame you i’m about to throw my own phone in the fucking sea_

Leenik raised his eyebrows. _?_ he asked, and got a giant block of text for his trouble.

_B always texts me a lot but ever since this party farce it’s fucking ridiculous. he thinks he’s being subtle but it’s like being buzzfeed-quizzed at every hour of the day by your best friend. he would know the answers to this shit if he ever stopped overthinking everything for five seconds but also i think he’s genetically incapable of a) listening to me or b) not overriding what i actually want with what he thinks i should want. the only thing keeping me from telling him the party’s not even real & that he’s basically jettisoning all of this info into space when he tells it to aava is that i’m terrified of what she would do to me _

“Thank god we volunteered Aava for this,” Leenik muttered. Zero had no such healthy fear of him, that was for sure, nor of Tryst. _you wanna come get drunk tn and plan the real party that’s actually happening?_

 _yes please,_ Zero replied immediately. _where?_

Leenik filled him in, wandering down the street toward the bus stop, and then realized there was no reason for him to go home. No one would wonder where he was, and if they did they could text or call him. His time was, in a way it hadn’t been for months, his own. It was a startling thought, and a nice one. He genuinely didn’t like being on a string, but there was something to be said for the high-flying freedom of the kite.

He made plans with Neemo to talk about cakes later in the week, then wandered for a while through the twilight streets. He liked living in cities because it made him feel small and unseen even when he was observed: like everyone could see him and no one _knew_ him and he could, if he wanted, slip the bonds of his life and take up another and no one would ever be the wiser. Everyone who saw him today—a slight, brown, hairless figure in a _Star Wars_ t-shirt, the line of his right arm just a little too stiff and wrong from the shoulder to the hand where he had it stuck in the pocket of his jeans—was creating their own narratives around him, and with a little imagination he could make any of them his own.

But—today the urge wasn’t so strong as it sometimes was. Today the threads of past and present that were real, the ones that sometimes wove around him so tight that he could barely breathe, that made him long to cut himself free, today they were a soft and comforting cloth against his skin. An old woman on her stoop was leaning down, speaking quietly to her dachshund, and suddenly Leenik knew exactly what to do with his extra time.

Lyn still hadn’t responded to his text so he called her, perching on the top of a stone wall outside a church like a gargoyle.

“Leenik,” she answered immediately, sounding harried. “You fixed your phone, thank god.”

“Uh,” said Leenik, his anxiety twinging even though she didn’t sound _panic-_ harried, just stress-harried. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Do you think there’s any way you could take Tamlin somewhere for a couple hours?” Lyn asked. “Summer school grades are due in tomorrow and I _really_ need the silence.”

Leenik thought about that. “Yeah,” he said, “I was actually calling to see if I could drop by and grab Tony for a bit but Tamlin can come too.”

“You’re a godsend,” said Lyn, and hung up.

Tamlin and Tony were already sitting on the stoop of Bacta and Lyn’s when he got there, Tamlin holding Tony’s leash loosely in one hand and a stick in the other, tapping it rhythmically against the stone steps

“Geez, kid,” said Leenik, jogging up to him. “She must’ve really wanted you out of her hair, what’d you do?”

Tamlin pouted at him. “I was only making pirate hats out of her papers—I didn’t tear them at _all—_ but then Tony kept knocking them off my head and trying to eat them.”

Leenik went to his knees to mess with Tony’s ears and receive his enthusiastic kisses. “Aw,” he said, “you were just trying to give those kids a laugh, weren’t you, when their professor came in and had to say their homework got eaten.” Tony nudged his cheek with his wet nose, and Leenik laughed at him.

“You’re in a good mood, uncle Leenik,” Tamlin observed.

Leenik smiled at him. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess I am.” He tapped his shoulder. “You want up?”

Tamlin nodded, and Leenik shifted to a lower step so he could clamber atop his shoulders. He wrapped Tony’s leash around his prosthetic wrist and steadied Tamlin with his good arm as he stood, and Tamlin’s hands shifted his hands over Leenik’s buzzed hair, petting him.

He moved on to Leenik’s face as they made their way down the block, Tony trotting happily ahead of them, running his fingers back and forth over Leenik’s eyebrows. “Spiky.”

“Yeah,” said Leenik, “I haven’t shaved them in a bit.”

“Why don’t you like having eyebrows?” Tamlin asked.

Leenik thought about that, following Tony around a corner, mostly just letting him go wherever he liked. “I dunno,” he said at last. “I like looking strange.”

“Why?”

“I guess because most of the time I feel pretty strange,” said Leenik. “What if I asked you why you like looking normal?”

He could almost hear Tamlin’s little thunder-cloud frown when he answered, “I _don’t._ ”

Leenik grinned. “Oh no?”

“No!” said Tamlin decisively.

“Do you feel normal?” Leenik asked, curious.

Tamlin was quiet for a second. “No,” he said at last, “but don’t tell uncle Bacta I said so.”

Leenik raised his hand to tickle Tamlin’s knee, kind of wishing he could see his face. “Why not?”

“Because he would get sad,” explained Tamlin. “But it’s not sad to not feel normal, right?”

Leenik stopped in front of a parked car, patting the roof, and Tamlin clambered off his shoulders to sit on it. Tony sniffed at the tires. Tamlin was about at eye-level with him like this, and looking at him seriously, his head on one side.

“It can be sad, sometimes,” said Leenik slowly. “But sometimes not feeling normal is the only way to _not_ feel sad, you know?”

Tamlin nodded. “Yeah.”

Leenik nodded back. “I think Bacta knows, too,” he said. “But it’s hard for him sometimes to take the things he knows about himself or your other uncles and know them about you.”

Tamlin cocked his head back the other way like an owl. “Why?”

Leenik thought about that. “Because he loves you,” he said slowly, “and he feels responsible for you, and like, what if you _want_ to feel normal and you can’t and it’s because of him somehow?”

Tamlin considered that while Tony peed on the tires of the car. “That’s dumb,” he finally decided. “It wouldn’t be his fault how I feel, and anyway I don’t really wanna feel normal.”

“Bacta’s pretty dumb,” Leenik agreed. He tapped a finger against Tamlin’s nose. “And how come you look so normal, then? Hm? How come you look just like a normal boy?”

“Because!” said Tamlin, batting his hand away. Leenik smirked at him and started poking his cheeks instead, and Tamlin’s eyebrows snapped together so much like Bacta’s that it was amazing they weren't blood-related. “Uncle Leenik! Stop it!”

“You wanna shave off your eyebrows?” Leenik asked, relenting.

Tamlin’s eyes went huge. “ _Yes!”_

“Hey!” someone shouted from their left. “What are you doing to my car—”

“Oop,” said Leenik, “time to go.” He pulled Tamlin one-handed back onto his shoulders, tugged Tony away from delightedly smelling his own pee, and booked it down the block.

“Come _on,_ ” came the aggrieved shout from behind them as they swung around a corner, then another, into an alley. Tamlin and Tony appeared to be pleased as punch at their new pace, Tony towing the two of them far beyond what Leenik would have judged to be a safe distance and Tamlin laughing the whole way, his hands clutching at Leenik’s head.

Eventually they slowed. “This is a good work-out,” Leenik panted, “I should get you guys to come running with me sometime.”

“Okay,” said Tamlin. “Eyebrows?”

Leenik rolled his eyes. “I can see you’ve got a one-track mind.” He pulled out his phone, opening up his maps app. “I could do it at my place, but it’s a little far, and I have to go meet people later. Hmm. We could take you to a barber-shop, I guess.”

“Those cost money,” Tamlin observed.

“Yeah, never pay for anything unless you absolutely have to, that's my motto,” said Leenik, searching for barbershops and then applying a custom filter he hadn’t used in ages to the search. It was relatively simple, just a reversed version of the app’s built-in “open now” function.

Tamlin drummed his tiny fingers on Leenik’s skull. “I thought your motto was, um, um, hang on I remember, oh!” He shifted his voice into what could only be his Leenik impression. “Kissing: it’s a serious business!”

Leenik blinked, still scrolling through search results on his phone. “Did I say that? That also seems right. Well. Let a man have as many mottos as they have, uh, Mondays. That's also my motto.”

“As many mottos as Mondays,” Tamlin repeated dutifully, and Leenik carried him onward through the dusk.

+

He couldn’t remember if he’d ever actually been inside the Anywhere Room. He’d met Lyn outside it a few times, back when she was dating Zara—the park where they'd met for the first time ever was only a few blocks away—but he wasn’t sure he remembered going inside. He knew Angel would be working but didn’t know if it was the kind of place you just walked in and sat down or if you got seated or what, so he lingered by the door until Aava and Tryst found him there.

They approached holding hands. Aava had clearly dressed Tryst - he was wearing a button-up that wasn’t hideous florals, and a blazer—and she herself looked as incredible as she always did in a black and red sheath dress. They looked coordinated and happy and _gorgeous_ in the late summer night, and Leenik wondered if he was the only one who felt so struck every time, if other people got used to feeling love.

“Hey,” Tryst said, curling a hand around the back of Leenik’s head and pulling him in to kiss him gently, and Leenik made a soft noise that he’d meant to be a _hi_ against his mouth.

Aava let go of Tryst’s hand in favor of threading her fingers through Leenik’s instead. “You could have gone inside,” she said.

“I know,” said Leenik, a little defensively, “but it's nice out.”

Tryst slid the hand from his head along his shoulders, and the three of them entered the bar.

Leenik didn’t see Angel, but Zara was there, chatting to a few customers. Both Tryst and Aava looked her appreciatively up and down, in an almost perfect synchronicity that made Leenik laugh.

Zara was, according to pretty much everyone, the hottest woman any of them had ever seen. She was also _all kinds_ of off-limits, mostly due to being Lyn’s ex, but also due to being, in Lyn’s words, the worst.

“You know, I was thinking when I was in here the other day. _I_ don't really care that she’s Lyn’s ex,” said Aava conversationally as they slid into a booth. Leenik let them have one side and took the other for himself so he could look at them. “In fact I don't feel like any of your limits should apply to me.”

Tryst turned, slowly, to stare at her. She stared right back, her red lips curling slowly into a smirk.

“You,” said Tryst in a tiny voice. “You can't.”

He immediately winced at himself, and Leenik winced with him. Aava’s eyebrows arched high as church windows. “I can't,” she repeated dangerously. “Careful, Trystan, I might take that as a challenge.”

“No,” Tryst pleaded, “no, it wouldn’t be challenging at all, it, you could do it so easily, it would really be very boring, look at you, look at _her_ —”

“Yeah,” purred Aava, “look at her.”

Tryst looked desperately at Leenik instead. “Help me,” he mouthed.

Leenik blinked innocently at him. “I don't know why you're objecting,” he said. “It's not like you don't like thinking about them together. You _told_ me you’ve thought about it. Wouldn’t it be better to think about when you know it's happened? When you can get the details right?” He looked at Aava. “I bet she would make awesome noises, her speaking voice is so pretty.”

Aava’s tormenting-Tryst smirk didn’t change, but her eyes were warm when Leenik met them, and he flashed her a small smile.

“I will die,” hissed Tryst, burying his hands in his hair. “Do you hear me, you demons? If you sleep with her and I can’t watch, or, or listen, or know what’s happening, I _will_ die.”

Aava sighed, her hand shifting at her side, and Leenik knew she would be running her long nails up Tryst’s thigh. “Shame,” she said. “I might even miss you.”

Tryst closed his eyes, slowly, like a man condemned.

Zara came over to them, stopping in front of their table with a hand on her hip. She looked at Aava. “You know, I saw you in here the other night and thought you might be dating Zero,” she said. “Thought I would have to give Angel the bad news. But now here you are on the arm of my least favorite Valentine.”

“Hey,” objected Tryst, “you can't make that call, you've never even _met_ Fling. And anyway, she’s not my girlfriend, she’s my partner.”

Zara looked puzzled at the distinction. “Your… business partner?” she asked delicately.

Aava snorted. Leenik smirked. “No, they’re sleeping together.” He loved doing this. There was something so delightful about watching people try to figure them out.

“Oh, yeah, we’re definitely sleeping together,” said Tryst too loudly, clumsily, fruitlessly staking a claim. “She’s my partner, for sex, and we have a deal worked out so everybody’s cool. It recently turned exclusive—”

“Not on my part,” Aava murmured, arching one brow at Zara.

Zara smirked back.

Tryst continued, distinctly less enthusiastically, “—on my part. Except for this guy.” He gestured at Leenik.

Zara turned curious eyes to Leenik. “Also your sex partner, but not your boyfriend?”

“No, I’m his boyfriend, today,” said Leenik. “Partner always, sex rarely.”

Zara looked between them, starting with Tryst. “My bandmate’s baby brother who appears to make money doing nothing at all,” she said, as if reciting their orders back to them, “his one-sidedly exclusive sex-partner who is not his girlfriend, and his sometimes-boyfriend, occasionally sexual, always everything else partner.” She crossed her arms. “What brings you to my bar?”

“Shenanigans,” Leenik said cheerfully.

Zara laughed. “Right. That explains everything.”

“Is Christmas here?” Tryst asked, peering around like he might find his sister hiding behind one of the booths. “Thought I might say hi.”

Zara shook her head. “She’s home,” she said, sounding regretful. “Likely sleeping off a _wicked_ hangover.”

Tryst sighed. “Oh well,” he said. “When you see her, ask if she wants to get another one in a couple weeks.” He grinned. “We’re throwing a party.”

Zara raised her eyebrows. “For what?”

Leenik looked Aava, who hesitated. This is why he was so bad at lying. Who could remember who was supposed to know what? Always easier to just tell the truth and let everything sort itself out.

“It’s a birthday party,” he said. “For—”

“For Blue,” Tryst said loudly, glancing significantly over Leenik’s shoulder, and Leenik turned to see Zero entering the bar. He wasn’t wearing his arm, his leather jacket pinned tight to his right side, and he looked harried.

“Oh yeah,” Leenik muttered to the table, “by the way, I invited Zero.”

“Why?” hissed Tryst. “Now we have to stick to one story the whole time—”

“Do you know Blue?” Aava asked Zara. “Young, red hair, owns the Bluebird?”

Zara’s eyes were narrowed. “Oh yes,” she said. “I know Blue.”

“Hey,” said Leenik to Zero, shifting over so he could slide into booth next to him.

“Hey,” said Zero, running his hand through his hair, maybe in an attempt to look more relaxed. “Thanks for the drinks offer.”

“When did you say this party was?” Zara asked Aava.

“Two weeks,” said Tryst. “Hi, Zero.”

Zero gave him a slightly uncomfortable wave, and Aava a little smile.

“Can I come?” asked Zara. “I love a good party.”

“We’d love to have you,” said Aava smoothly, before Leenik or Tryst could object. “The more the merrier, right boys?”

Leenik looked at Tryst, who shrugged helplessly back. They’d have to deal with Lyn, but what was done was done. “Sure,” he said at last.

Zara smiled wide. “Fabulous. I’ll send Angel over in a sec for your drinks.” She twiddled her fingers in a hello to Zero and disappeared back to the bar.

“Oh, good,” said Zero, “I wanted to talk to her anyway, I just haven’t had a chance to get here. Blue’s been keeping me on a ridiculously short leash lately.”

Leenik thought about Zara saying she would have to give Angel the bad news if Zero and Aava had been dating. “Jealous dude,” he suggested.

Zero stared at the tabletop, his thumb drumming against the wood. “Possessive, maybe,” he said, his voice bitter. “Jealous implies he sees me as a person.”

Leenik barely had time to meet Aava’s startled eyes before Zero immediately continued, grimacing. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean that. It’s just been a lot, lately.”

“Nonstop buzzfeed?” Leenik prompted.

Zero shrugged his armless shoulder. “That’s half of it. The other half is he’s been, uh, asking me to do shit for him, way more than usual, and none of it makes any sense.” He squinted at Tryst and Aava, and finally concluded, “Just. Weird favors.”

 _Jobs,_ Leenik filled in internally, and figured Aava would be doing the same. Ugh, all these _secrets._

“Why do you want to talk to Angel?” Aava asked, thankfully steering the conversation away from dangerous waters.

“I think she’s the solution to our music problem,” Zero explained, “since you won’t let me DJ for some reason.”

Aava propped her chin on her hand. “If Blue walks in and sees you DJing, he’s not exactly going to think it’s a party for _you,_ is he? Besides, he’s your best friend, you should get to hang out with him at his birthday.”

“Also,” said Tryst, “we’re pretty sure he might die of lust if he ever sees you be that competent.”

Leenik looked sideways at Zero, wondering if the _weird favors_ he’d referenced involved Zero reaching his maximum competence at something other than music, but Zero just flushed. “Whatever,” he muttered. “Anyway, if anyone other than me can blend Blue’s weird music taste into something danceable, it’s Angel.”

“Gee, thanks,” said Angel, coming over to their table with a pad. She smiled slightly at Zero. “Hey.”

Zero raised his hand in a little wave. “Hey,” he said. “I’m serious, you’re great.”

Angel winced. “Yeah, sorry, I have this thing with my voice where everything I say sounds sarcastic.” She tugged at one of her many ear piercings. “I meant it, though, that’s really flattering coming from you.”

Tryst was looking back and forth between them, opening his mouth to say something when his phone lit up at his elbow. He frowned, picking it up. “Bacta, what’s up?”

“When’s this party?” Angel asked Zero.

“What?” asked Tryst. “No, he’s here with me, of course he didn’t. Yeah, I’ll ask him.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and covered it with his hand, looking quizzically at Leenik. “Bacta wants to know if you broke into a barber shop and shaved off Tamlin’s eyebrows.”

“Two weeks,” said Zero. “I can text you details—”

“Let me do it,” said Aava smoothly. “I’m supposed to be organizing, after all, and you clearly have enough on your mind.”

Leenik made a face at Tryst. “Is it technically breaking in if they didn’t even bother locking the door?”

Tryst held up a hand, listening for a second, and then said, “Bacta says Tamlin says it _was_ locked and you unlocked it with a credit card. Also he says he tried to call you because you texted him about fixing your phone but then it just went straight to voicemail anyway.”

Zero waved his permission to Aava, and Angel hesitated, looking a little disappointed, before pulling out her phone to give her number.

“A lock you can open with a credit card is barely a lock at all,” Leenik said scornfully. “And yeah, I turned it off, because I knew Lyn was gonna call and yell at me when she opened the door.”

Tryst scowled at him. “What’s the point of fixing your phone if you’re just going to turn it off?”

“How come you’re not working this party? Who’s it for?” Angel asked, looking back at Zero.

Leenik scoffed. “I dunno, Tryst, being able to turn it on again?”

“Okay, yeah, fair,” said Tryst. “Bacta, you hear that? Yeah. What?” He looked at Leenik. “He, uh, he says thank you?”

Leenik blinked at him. “He does?”

“My,” said Zero, and then stopped. “Uh, my friend Blue, it’s his birthday.”

“Yeah,” said Tryst, “apparently Tamlin loves it and also swore not to bother Bacta about his gun cabinets anymore with no prompting.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Leenik, “I made him promise to do that if I did his eyebrows and got him ice cream. Kid drives a hard bargain.”

Angel coughed. “So,” she said. “You guys gonna order drinks, or what?”

+

Three drinks later, Tryst was sitting sideways on their half of the booth, his legs slung fully over Aava’s lap. He was watching Zara and Angel move from customer to customer at the bar, synchronized and casual in each other’s space, moving almost like they were dancing. Zero had left after drink #2, seeming a little less stressed but still too tense for Leenik’s liking.

Leenik sucked up the last of the pink out of the bottom of their glass. “You guys think Angel has a crush on Zero?”

Aava twirled her hair around a finger. “Zara thinks she does, anyway,” she said, “you heard what she said when I came in. That’s why I took over communicating with her about the music.”

Tryst raised an eyebrow at her. “You don’t want them flirting?”

Aava sipped her drink. “Oh, no, they can flirt if they want, I just wanted to be able to tell her it’s also Zero’s party. She likes him, she’ll want to impress him, we get a better DJ out of it.”

Leenik twirled their straw in their fingers. “It’s a shame we didn’t know about this crush earlier,” they mused. “We could have used it in the original plan instead of having Tryst do the jealousy catalyst bit.”

“Nah,” said Tryst, looking smug, “then I wouldn’t have confirmation that Zero thinks I’m hot.”

Aava finished her drink in one long, graceful swallow. “Trystan,” she said without looking at him. “Go home.”

Tryst blinked. “What?”

“Go home,” Aava repeated unhurriedly. “Your home, please, I want you alone.” She ran the tip of her finger around the rim of her glass. “Free to...think.”

“Think?” Tryst asked, sitting up a little. “About what? What are you—”

Leenik caught his eye and jerked their head toward the bar, where Zara was leaning, paused for a moment in her steady, swaying dance, her pale hair swept over one shoulder. The neon lights above the bar painted her in blues and purples, the color catching, refracting in the silver of her many bracelets and bangles, the glitter dusted across her collarbones and cleavage.

Tryst’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said, heartfelt.

“Go on,” said Aava, unmoving.

Tryst threw back the rest of his drink and climbed awkwardly over her. “I’m doing this,” he said, once he’d managed not to fall over on his dismount from the bench, “I want it noted, under _great_ duress, I should get—I should get a _fucking_ medal—”

“Tryst,” said Leenik gently, cutting him off. “It’s just us. You don’t have to do the whole—thing.”

Tryst stopped, his shoulders relaxing and his eyes softening. He looked from Leenik to Aava, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. “Right,” he said. “Yeah. Um.”

Aava held out a hand to him, and he leaned forward, fitting his chin against her palm. She ran her nails over his jaw, pressed her thumb hard to his lips. “Get,” she suggested, voice low, “the fuck out.”

He went, casting a dark-eyed look at Leenik that they caught between their teeth and stored away for a rainy day.

They expected Aava to get up immediately and make her move, were content to watch her work her magic for a few minutes before wandering home themself, but instead she paused, rocking her glass between her hands, her face shifted out of command into something less familiar, harder for Leenik to read. They ran a hand up their prosthetic arm, working their shoulder to prevent stiffness, and waited.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Aava asked, after a few beats of silence.

Leenik lifted their prosthetic straight out from their side, stretching, the straps across their back shifting painfully. “Tryst?” They asked, surprised. “He’s better than fine, you’re basically giving him a present—”

Aava shook her head. “Zero.”

“Oh,” said Leenik, lowering their arm. “I'm not sure. I don’t.” They frowned. “I don’t get why he doesn’t know what he’s doing."

Aava frowned back at them, mirroring. “What do you mean?”

“The way Zero described it to me,” they explained, “he’s only technically Blue’s bodyguard. He’s never done any actual guarding, other than standing around and looking intimidating. If Blue’s got all these enemies, shouldn’t Zero know about them? Be on the lookout? Feel like he has a job and not that Blue is paying him to be his friend?”

“Okay,” said Aava, “that _is_ weird, because as soon as you told me I assumed Zero must have done something.” She plucked the toothpick from her drink, catching the last drops of liquor from it on her tongue. “I’m pretty sure the hit and run that fucked up Blue’s leg was a botched assassination attempt, and I’m pretty sure he knows it, too, and it doesn’t make any sense for him not to have taken care of that active threat, you know? Not for _four years._ ”

Leenik frowned. “Maybe he did?” they suggested. “Maybe he has other enforcers somewhere that you don’t know about?”

Aava arched a brow. “That _I_ don’t know about, sure, but that Zero doesn’t? That wouldn’t convince him Blue needs the protection and isn’t just keeping him around for kicks?”

Leenik gnawed on their lip. “Is it possible Blue just...I dunno, stopped? Stopped pulling the shit that got people pissed at him, so they let him go with a fucked up knee rather than returning to finish the job?”

“It’s possible,” Aava said in a tone that conveyed exactly how unlikely she thought it was.

“But” said Leenik, “then today, Zero’s all stressed out because Blue actually _is_ asking him to do shit.”

“Still without telling him why,” Aava agreed. She sighed. “I don’t know what he’s up to, but I know he’s playing some kind of game. Something’s changed, something that means he needs Zero more visible, more active.”

Leenik leaned forward, their chin in their hand, too drunk and tired for this. “I just wanted to get people to fall in love,” they said plaintively. “You know?”

Aava stood up, squeezing their good shoulder. “I know,” she said. “They’ll figure it out.”

Leenik sighed. “You want me to watch for a bit, tell Tryst about it?”

Aava looked at Zara, then back at them, considering. “No,” she said finally, “I think I’ll leave him a voicemail.”

+

“Okay,” said Neemo, pushing his glasses up his nose and spreading his notebooks across the bar at the Bluebird. “So. What’s the story here?”

Leenik waited til Synox brought them their tea and Neemo his coffee, expecting him to make himself absent as he usually did, but instead the ex-sergeant just crossed his arms and leaned against the shelves behind the bar, listening. He raised his good eyebrow at Leenik’s questioning glance. “What? I’m interested.”

“Ookay,” said Leenik, drawing it out. “Neemo, do you know Synox? Synox, this is Neemo, he’s my favorite author, and also my friend. Neemo, this is Synox, he’s Bacta’s ex—”

“—drill sergeant,” Synox cut in firmly, his face betraying nothing. “I believe I’ve seen you around.” He held out his hand to shake.

Neemo took it, a little nervously. “Pleasure. You, uh, you a romance fan?”

Synox sniffed. “Don’t see much use for it personally,” he said. He cocked his head at Leenik. “This for the party?”

Leenik wondered which party he knew about, and then remembered Aava’s immediate _he is_ when they’d identified Synox as a good secret-keeper. Maybe he knew about both. “Yep,” they said, noncommittal.

“Then,” said Synox, “safe to say I’m a fan of this one.” Leenik blinked at him, but he was already turning back to Neemo. “Blue is allergic to strawberries.”

Leenik scoffed. “God, you’d think Zero would’ve mentioned. Some bodyguard.” They froze, realizing.

Synox just kept staring down at Neemo’s closed notebooks, as if they might give him answers. “Indeed,” he said, but Leenik had no idea if he’d even been listening.

Neemo flipped one of the notebooks open, making a note. “Right. Chocolate, maybe? Zero’s kind of tall, dark and handsome, maybe we render his bit in chocolate and Blue’s in—vanilla? Is that too simplistic?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Leenik, “I think that’s a _little_ simplistic. Besides, Blue’s bit should be—you know, blue.”

“But he’s so pale, and his freckles—kind of a vanilla bean thing going on there, don’t you think? That’s how I’d write about him anyway, Zero thinking about him like that really good kind of vanilla ice cream.” Neemo shifted, blushing a little when Synox and Leenik both wrinkled their brows at him. “A-anyway, there’s not really cake that’s blue and also classy at all. Blueberry, maybe, but that’s a weird combination. Is blue velvet a thing—”

“David Lynch film yes,” said Leenik, “cake flavor no.”

“Damn,” said Neemo.

“You’ve given up on the whole rendering important scenes from the past thing,” Synox observed.

Leenik ran a hand over their head. “Yeah,” they said, “turned out their origin story isn’t really something I wanna remind them of. Or me of. Honestly.”

“Mm.” Synox crossed his arms, thinking. “Lavender. Rosemary, maybe.”

Neemo raised his eyes. “In cake?”

“It’s what’s in Blue’s signature cocktail,” Synox explained. “Bombay sapphire, tonic, lavender syrup, fresh rosemary.” He scratched his jaw. “In winter it’s coffee and kahlua, but that’s the summer Bluebird.”

“They’re both pretty subtle flavors,” Leenik mused. “Would work well with vanilla cake, maybe an almond-flour base, but would probably be overpowered by the chocolate.”

“What about layers?” Neemo asked. “Vanilla lavender, coffee chocolate, vanilla lavender again? That way you get both seasons, that kind of thing?”

Leenik leaned back on their bar stool, their good hand hooked under them to keep them from tipping over. “But what’s the _story_ of a layer cake,” they complained. “That’s what I brought you here for.”

Neemo pushed his glasses up his long nose. “Their lives,” he said slowly, “intertwined. Individually whole, complex in their own right, but now inseparable, complementary. And together, incomparable.” He smiled his nervous, crooked smile. “That’s what love is all about, right?”

“I mean, that and dashing, daring rescues, moonlight confessions, and secret ardent handwritten letters, sure,” agreed Leenik. They slowly tipped forward again so they were upright and picked up their tea. “It’s kind of a shame Tryst was wrong about Zero saving Blue from falling off a building or whatever.”

Neemo nodded in agreement, his pen shifting across the page of his notebook.

“I mean,” said Synox, “if it’s saving people from great heights you’re looking for, that did actually happen.”

Leenik blinked at him. “What? Really? But Zero would’ve told me.”

Synox shook his head. “He wasn’t there,” he said. “I’m not sure he knows.”

Neemo looked up, interested. “ _You_ saved Blue?”

Synox shook his head. “He saved me,” he said, “or at least tried to, it was sort of a mutual saving situation after a certain point.”

Leenik stared at him, and then slowly at Neemo, and then back at Synox, attempting to wrap their brain around the idea of 95-pounds-when-soaking-wet Blue being able to do _anything_ for an imperiled Synox except perhaps be physically crushed.

Neemo was making what Leenik could only assume was a very similar face to their own. Eventually one of them—Leenik genuinely had no idea who—said, tentatively, “...how?”

“I volunteer at veterans hospital,” explained Synox, “running physical therapy and strength rehab and such.” He scratched his perfectly-shaven jaw. “One day after a few weeks of working here Blue came to observe.”

Leenik hummed. “He observes a lot of shit. He came to one of my sparring sessions with Zero a few weeks ago.”

Synox nodded, unsurprised. “I have come to believe that in this case he was doing research for the design of Zero’s arm. He seemed—incredibly determined, and quite excited.” He inclined his head to Leenik. “I presume whatever meet-cute you would rather not be reminded of had just happened.”

Leenik tried to picture Blue without Zero but about to acquire him. Just a drumroll of a person. A riddle anticipating its answer.

“I’d taken my boys rock-climbing,” Synox said. “Working on parallel bars and everything is all well and good, but it’s good to stretch your muscles as they regrow, and it helps to do something _real._ ”

Neemo looked interested. “Like one of those gyms with the climbing walls?”

Synox stared at him. “No,” he said. “Those aren’t rocks.”

Neemo wilted. “Oh,” he said, “I, right, sorry.”

“I climb, too, next to anyone who might need a steadying hand,” Synox continued, looking back at Leenik. “Long story short, my belayer, Noons, loses track of my line just as I’m steadying the next guy over, so no time for me to catch onto anything. Blue’s closest, and he grabs the rope.”

Leenik blinked. “And he actually stopped you from falling?”

The corner of Synox’s mouth turned up. “Oh, no,” he said, “I fell, but I fell slow. Blue…” He held out a hand, pointer finger extended, and flicked it upward in a gesture of rapid ascent. “Pulled halfway up the cliff, screaming blue murder.” He frowned. “No pun intended.”

“Of course not,” muttered Neemo.

“Took us near half an hour to get him down, especially without hurting his leg,” Synox said. “Still. Appreciated the effort. Came to work here a few weeks later.”

Leenik nodded. “Sure,” they said, “makes sense, working off your life debt or whatever.”

“What? No, he was just looking for extra help, and I mix good drinks.” Synox collected Leenik’s teacup. “Good luck with the cake.”

Leenik watched him go, then turned back to Neemo. “Okay, but, it’s definitely the life debt thing, right?”

Neemo wasn’t paying attention, busy writing down notes. “Will you actually save me cake this time?”

Leenik blinked at him. “You’re not coming to the party?”

Neemo shook his head. “Too many people,” he said. “I’m not, you know, great with crowds? Anyway, Bacta asked me to watch Tamlin for the night.”

“Oh, right,” said Leenik. They hummed. “You, uh, might have to shave off his eyebrows.”

Neemo finally looked up from his books. “Sorry," he said. "I might have to what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look i know i said this would be the last chapter but i ALSO said i should know better
> 
> this one's pretty quiet but I hope you enjoyed anyway!!


	6. Chapter 6

Leenik finished sharpening their pink eyeliner, then carefully drew in their second brow. It wasn’t an exact match for the wig, but it was close enough, and no one was going to notice in the shifting, inconsistent lights of the Bluebird’s club hours. They examined themselves critically, trying to figure out what lip color to choose.

Aava chose one for them, handing it to them out of her makeup bag, then picked up their eyepatch, offering it.

Leenik hesitated, then shook their head. “It’s not really a show,” they said, “so I’m not really in _character,_ you know? I’m just.” They plumped their pink curls. “Fancy.”

Aava smiled at them in the mirror. “Yeah,” she said, “I get that.” She ran her thumb over the corner of her mouth, erasing an invisible flaw in her own deep purple lipstick. “This is it, huh. Our plan comes together tonight whether we like it or not.”

Leenik winced, then did it a few more times because they kind of liked how it looked, with their eyes artificially widened with eyeliner, their pink eyebrows, their pale green lip. “Sorry about how much it became, like, _your_ plan,” they said. “Tryst—you know.”

Aava ran a hand through her hair. “He’s a catalyst,” she said. “I love him, but I don’t exactly expect follow-through.” She looked sideways at them, her own eyeliner so sharp it could cut steel. “Wouldn’t necessarily have expected it from you, either, if you’d asked me a month or two ago.”

Leenik shrugged. “Don’t get used to it,” they said. “I just—I care, you know?”

Aava nodded, her eyes warm. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.” She leaned over a pressed a perfect kiss-mark to Leenik’s cheekbone.

Leenik yelped and fought her off. “Now I’m going to have to do my highlighter again—”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Aava, leaving their bathroom to go pull on her boots. “Leave it. Who knows? Maybe we’ll make some hot strangers jealous.”

“Gross,” Leenik muttered, but followed her out.

She must have gotten Synox in on the plan, because when they got to Bluebird the lighting was—well, blue. The usual wall-sconces and hanging, vaguely yonic lamps had their bulbs swapped for novelty blue ones of different hues, giving the space a sort of otherworldly, aquatic look. There were white fairy-lights crisscrossing the ceiling, and Synox was just maneuvering Leenik’s finished cake onto the table as they came in.

Leenik darted over to help him. “The center didn’t sink as it cooled?” They asked anxiously. “The icing hasn’t slid off? Oh, geez.”

Aava laid a calming hand on their shoulder. “It’s fine,” she reassured them. “It looks lovely.”

It did, Leenik had to admit—it was three tiers of pale blue and mirrored black, with little decorative bluebells and a looping, curly _Happy Birthday(s) Blue and Zero_ in silver script. It kind of looked like a wedding cake, but honestly, they had planned _romantic,_ and there were only so many things you can do with layers without symbolizing some other stuff. Within a few hours Leenik figured someone would have pushed someone else’s drunken face through it anyway, so who really cared.

There was something about being on the cusp of something that had taken so much work and mental energy that made them very zen. Who really cared about anything? Here they were. What happened at this party would happen. Who were they to think they could control it?

Synox dusted his hands and pulled a bundle of printed pages from his apron pocket, setting it on the table next to the cake.

Leenik looked at it sideways. “What’s this?”

“I’m told it’s the narrative of the cake,” said Synox. “Your friend Mr. Sparks delivered it this morning.”

Leenik blinked. “He wrote a novel. He wrote a _new novel_ for this stupid plan in two weeks?”

Synox nodded. “Fine work, if a little sentimental for my tastes.”

“You read it?” Leenik asked, incredulous. “Since this _morning?_ ”

The door opened, and Tryst darted in. “Look lively, guys, they’re on their way,” he said, glancing behind him, and then turned to look at Aava and Leenik. “Oh. _Damn,_  you two.”

Aava smirked, leaning an elbow on Leenik’s shoulder. Leenik fidgeted, pleased with themself, and then had a sudden realization. “Are we hiding? Is this like a jumping-out kind of surprise party—”

“Too late, if it was gonna be,” said Aava, and the doors swung open.

Leenik was never sure if Blue and Zero intentionally dressed to match with each other all the time or if it was some kind of mandated dress code by Blue or if Zero subconsciously chose to match Blue so they’d look better together or if Blue intentionally chose to match Zero so they would, but whatever the intent, they had outdone themselves this time. Zero was in clothes Leenik had seen him in before, his normal elegant black, leather-jacket style, but someone had given him a pair of electric blue sunglasses that would have looked absolutely ridiculous on anyone else, and Leenik was pretty sure his objectively sexy knee-high boots were new.

Blue always dressed well, if a little stuffily, but Zero—or maybe Aava, who’d been in the back room chatting with him earlier while Leenik baked—had managed to coerce him into loosening up a little. He’d shed the sweater-vests and button-ups for a loose, wide-necked shirt in a kind of shimmering blue-black and black jeans; it was combination that managed to emphasize his height and slim frame without making him look like either a scarecrow or a twelve year old boy, which Leenik, as someone with a similar build (although much more muscle, these days) could appreciate. He was also wearing some kind of wide rose-gold collar that Leenik was _certain_ was a piece from Aava’s collection, though they wondered if it might be a Blue’s now, considering the whole birthday thing and how well it matched his cane.

“Oh my god,” Blue said, stopping a few feet inside the door, noticing the cake and the pretty unmistakable decorations. “Oh my god. For me?” He looked at Zero, then at Aava, then back at Zero, then at everyone else. “This is for me?”

“Turns out we want to celebrate you after all,” Zero said quietly. Leenik wasn’t even sure Blue was meant to hear it, and pretty sure he hadn’t.

“It’s for both of you,” Aava corrected, and shrugged when Zero gave her a look. “How else was I going to make you both do something nice for your boy _and_ have fun for your birthday?”

“It’s for _me?”_ Blue demanded again, looking around at everyone. He seemed delighted, but there was something else going on, the motion of his eyes too quick, too shifting. “You—did you tell people it was for me?”

Tryst and Leenik exchanged glances. “I mean,” said Leenik, “some people, we were kind of playing both sides.”

“What people?” Zero muttered, gesturing around to the empty room. “You know, if you told people it was Blue’s party, that would account for why there’s no one here.”

“So _cruel_ , Zero,” Blue protested, laying a hand on his chest. “And at my birthday party!”

“It’s also my birthday party,” Zero pointed back, “pretty sure that means I can say whatever I want.”

“Well this is going perfectly already,” Aava muttered.

“Chill, you guys,” said Leenik. “You’re just early.”

Zero scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, it turns out when you tell two people they’re each leading the other one to a surprise party they get kind of antsy.” He sighed. “I’m getting a drink.”

“Sy,” called Aava, “show Zero his part.”

Synox had vanished at some point and reappeared behind the bar, and he leaned over and flipped a switch.

The nice, tasteful blue lighting vanished. The Bluebird had always had several portable revolving lights they put out at night to cast fun and interesting colors and shadows across the dance floor, but someone had put some serious work into upgrading that. There were moving spotlights in the corners, sending shifting iridescent beams criss-crossing through the empty space—Leenik spotted a lightboard at the end of the bar, presumably for Angel to play with as she DJ’ed—and more installed in the ceiling, shuttered so they cast perfect colored squares on the floor. Hidden LED rails ran up the walls between the tables, flashing fast and slow, fast and slow, like some kind of neon spectral rib cage around a polychromatic chessboard dance-floor heart.

“My contribution,” Blue murmured, sounding supremely satisfied with himself.

“What,” Tryst muttered, “no fog machine? _Lame._ ”

Zero stared around at the transformed world of the Bluebird. “This is awesome,” he said, sounding kind of stunned. “But—Blue, you realize you gave this present to _yourself_ , right? This is your club, it’s not exactly a birthday present to me—”

“Of course it is,” said Blue, confused. “You’re the one who’ll use it and, and enjoy it. For all intents and purposes, it’s yours.”

Zero licked his lips. “Do you—do you know what property is? Are you so rich that the concept just doesn’t mean anything to you anymore? This—this place is not _mine,_ it’s a place where I am and spend time but that doesn’t make it—like. Blue. If I left I can’t exactly take this with me—”

Blue frowned at him. “I don’t understand. Why would you leave?”

Zero cast a desperate glance at Leenik, who shrugged helplessly. “I—god, never mind. Sy, can you _please_ make me a drink, I’m dying.”

Blue looked like he might press the issue, but Lyn and Bacta arrived in matching denim vests, glitter on their biceps, and Tryst straightened up from where he’d been leaning against Aava’s side, offended. “What the hell, did everyone go shopping without me? What is this? Why is everyone so matchy? Is this a roommates thing?”

“Leenik and I aren’t matchy,” Aava pointed out. “And Blue and Zero aren’t roommates.”

“You’re not _matching_ but you’re like, aesthetically paired, like—like I'd buy you in the same section of, like, high femme bath bombs, and Lyn and Bacta are over here look like they just walked out of a cult film about gay biker gangs, and Blue and Zero had a centerfold spread in Classy Twink Villains Magazine, and no one sent me the fucking memo!”

“We didn’t think it necessary,” Aava said archly. “It’s a _party,_ Trystan.”

“You look good,” Leenik reassured him as Lyn and Bacta came over to join them.

“You do,” agreed Bacta. “Nobody wears a kimono like you.”

Tryst grumblingly smoothed down his very short pink and black floral kimono, and Leenik kissed him on the cheek, conciliatory.

“Well, here comes a motley crew,” Synox observed, peering through the window.

Five seconds later Zara swept in, Angel and Windy at her heels—presumably, anyway, somewhere in amongst the throng of other people also at her heels. Leenik caught sight of what might have been Christmas, too, and a few other faces they vaguely recognized. In what seemed like no time at all the Bluebird was filled with laughter and chatter, Angel was making her way to the turntables, and Synox and another bartender Leenik had seen around a few times were pouring about a dozen drinks.

“What is she doing here?” Lyn asked, panic and annoyance warring in her voice, her eyes on Zara, who hadn’t seen her yet. “Ugh. I'm not doing this without being at least two drinks deep.” She stepped backward, pushing Leenik and Bacta toward each other like she was closing a set of curtains, and vanished off to the bar, catching Synox’s eye.

“What is _he_ doing here?” Tryst asked, in a similar tone, but his eyes were on the man at Zara’s side.

Leenik followed his gaze, frowning. “Who is that?”

He wasn’t much to look at—tall, with a long, squareish sort of head and short brown hair—but he wore an air of swaggering asshole like a cloak. For one thing, he had an arm draped around Zara’s shoulders that she looked like she was barely tolerating. For another, he was wearing _chaps._

“Jacinto Reth,” Tryst muttered, like he'd just taken a bite of something vile.

Bacta blinked. “ _That’s_ Jacinto Reth?”

The guy saw them staring and tried to steer Zara over to them, but she ducked smoothly out from under his arm and went to talk to Aava, leaving Reth alone, staring down Leenik, Bacta, and Tryst.

“Hi,” he said, too loudly, and held out a hand to Tryst. “Jacinto Reth, CIA.”

“Nope,” said Tryst immediately, turned on his heel, and walked out the front door.

Leenik, baffled, looked from the retreating line of his back to Bacta, who was staring at Reth, his whole face tight.

“Geez,” said Reth, his lips curling up in the most vacant, unpleasant smile Leenik had ever seen. They could see all his teeth and also part of his tongue, somehow. “What’s his problem? My reputation _pro_ ceed me?” He moved his hand, still held out stiff as a board for a handshake. “Get it? Because I’m a pro?”

Bacta appeared to make a decision, smoothing his face with an effort and taking Reth’s hand. He used his old enforcer handshake, judging by the way Reth winced. “I think it’s precede, actually,” he said, and gave Leenik a sideways, prompting look, flicking his eyes after Tryst. “Should you just be telling people you’re CIA?”

Leenik fled as Reth attempted to disentangle his hand.

Tryst was leaning against the wall outside the door, staring upward. A cigarette had materialized from somewhere—Leenik was impressed, they’d missed whoever Tryst had pickpocketed for it—but it was dangling unlit from his fingers; probably he’d forgotten to pilfer a lighter as well. A few years ago he would have had one on him, but smoking had been the easiest of his addictions to kick.

Leenik popped open the storage slot of their arm and shook a match out of the box they kept there, offering it to him.

Tryst took it. “They’d never let you on an airplane.”

Leenik shrugged. “Can’t fly anywhere anyway, I don’t think I have a clean enough alias.”

Tryst smiled crookedly, though he didn’t quite look at their face. “Not one you’d remember to stick to, anyway.”

Leenik smiled back, and waited.

Tryst picked up their prosthetic hand and struck the match against their palm, his eyes on the flare of light. He lit the cigarette and took a drag, then threaded his fingers through Leenik’s metal and plastic ones, sealing them palm to palm. He liked doing this. Sometimes it made Leenik uncomfortable, sometimes it felt like he’d forgotten Leenik couldn’t feel it or like he was doing it to pretend they still had two arms, but tonight it felt fitting—the appearance of touch, a first step, a symbolic one-sided connection: he was acknowledging, even appreciating Leenik’s presence, even if he couldn’t quite tangibly be there with them.

They stood there, side by side, watching people arrive for the party, their backs against solid brick, til Tryst had smoked the cigarette down to its filter. He dropped it to the ground and crushed it under his heel, breaking the spell.

“He’s not actually CIA, right?” Leenik asked. “He doesn’t even know the word _precede_.”

Tryst raised a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know,” he said. “He wasn’t when I knew him.”

“He didn’t recognize you,” Leenik said quietly.

Tryst squinted at nothing. “Yeah,” he said, “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.” He ran the hand not holding Leenik’s through his hair, unexpectedly self-conscious. “I do look pretty different than I did at thirteen.”

“Oh,” said Leenik, the timeline and the tone of Tryst’s voice making some things line up. “Is he—were you and your sisters staying with him?”

Tryst and his sisters had met in the foster system, swearing an actual blood oath to remain family even if they were split up and passed around to different households a hundred times. Tryst still had the scar across his palm—he told people he got it catching a katana with his bare hands, but he’d admitted the truth in a drunken ramble to Bacta and Leenik in the back of Rendezvous’ van, the first or second time they’d ever met her.

 _But you always talk about Valentine genes,_ Leenik had said, and Tryst had fixed them with a suspicious eye. _Yeah,_ he’d said, _so?_ and Leenik had let it go forever.

From what Leenik understood, they usually had been adopted together—at least in twos, especially after they started calling themselves the Valentine sibs, named after the day they'd met. The foster care center decided that cutesy shit would sell, so Tryst was usually adopted along with Dalliance for their matching blonde heads, and Fling and Vous-Vous together, before they were all inevitably returned again, pulled from their new homes for fighting back against abusive parents, or stealing from foolish ones, or otherwise being “undesirable.”

Tryst shook his head, and the motion pulled Leenik back to the present. “He’s the one who got me out, though he never meant to.” He scratched his jaw. “The family we were with wasn’t a bad one, actually, good people, but the mom was mixed up in some gang shit. Reth—claiming to be a cop—caught me shoplifting and got me to join up, said if I was his CI he'd, uh.” He grimaced. “Give me a lot of money.”

“Did he follow through?”

Tryst shook his head, dropping his head to stare at his feet. “After a few months he vanished with my info. Nearly got me caught before he did, too, but I played it off without earning anything more serious than a couple bruises. Kept working with the gang, running shit for them, until I saw an opportunity to grab some cash and split.”

“What about Chris?” asked Leenik, though they sort of knew this part, had heard bits and pieces of this story before.

Tryst winced. “I figured she wouldn’t stay long, right? I figured give it a few months, get myself a place to stay, I’d circle back around to the orphanage for her and the others, we’d all break out together.”

“That's not how it went down,” Leenik filled in, when he trailed off. “She stayed?”

Tryst nodded, tucking his hair behind his ear. “She stayed, and she convinced the parents to take in Fling and Vous-Vous, too.” He shrugged. “I guess by the time I came back and offered, the choice between stability and freedom was pretty clearly not in my favor.”

Leenik thought about that, tried to remember what stability had meant to them, when it had been in their grasp. They expected—braced themselves for—Tony’s face, but found they didn’t have to reach so far. Instead, stability crept up on them in pieces - sitting on the floor of the dojo with Zero, quiet and alive, bemoaning raccoons and their tiny hands with Bacta, Lyn’s fingers across their back. Aava and Tryst, coming toward them on the sidewalk and folding Leenik up between them with no hesitation.

They took a slightly shaky breath. “For you, though,” they said. “It's hard to choose something when you don’t know what it feels like.”

Tryst nodded a few too many times. “I wasn’t gonna,” he said, and cleared his throat. “The parents—my sisters’ parents, they were already feeding three when they’d only bargained for two, I wasn’t gonna burden them when I’d already figured out how to be on my own.”

Leenik tipped over sideways, their head on Tryst’s shoulder. Tryst let go of their hand and wrapped his arm around their waist, automatic, tucking his warm fingers into their waistband, along the sharp line of their hip.

“You ever see Reth again?” Leenik asked after a minute. “Besides tonight, I mean.”

They felt Tryst shake his head. “Thought about trying to track him down a few times, never followed through.”

Leenik hummed, liking the feeling of the vibration of Tryst’s voice through their skull where it was pressed to his shoulder. “You want me to kill him?”

Bacta or Lyn would have chided them. Tryst was silent for a moment, as if genuinely considering it, then pressed a kiss to the top of their head. “Nah,” he said. “Thanks, though.”

Leenik straightened up with a sigh. “You never let me have any fun. I could do it, he's _very_ dumb.”

Tryst grinned at them. “I know, babe.” He lifted a hand, running it up Leenik’s throat and cupping their jaw, then pulled them close, forehead to forehead. He stayed like that, breathing a moment, breathing in Leenik’s breath, and for the first time Leenik thought maybe there was something in this, in them, that meant stability for _Tryst,_ too.

After a moment Tryst pulled back, tugging one of Leenik’s earrings in a fond, absent way. “They better not have done shots without us.”

“They wouldn’t _dare_ ,” Leenik said. “Would they?”

They hadn’t. Bacta had managed to disentangle himself from Reth, who had reattached himself to the throng of people around Zara like a vaguely unwanted limpet, and was chatting with Lyn and Rendezvous, who was rolling a joint on the bar. Leenik propped their elbow on Lyn’s shoulder, giving a small smile in response to her questioning look, and Tryst let go of them to sling himself bodily across Bacta’s lap.

“Hey, woah,” said Bacta, his arms coming up automatically to catch him. Somehow he managed to balance them both on a single barstool, Tryst ending up in a sort of half-bridal carry with one of his feet braced against the bar. “You good, buddy?”

Tryst waved a hand dismissively and tilted his head back so he could look at Rendezvous upside-down. “Hey, sis.”

Rendezvous twitched her eyebrows unreadably at him, then twisted the end of the joint closed and lit it.

Leenik tilted their head sideways against Lyn’s. “Did anyone check if Blue’s cool with us smoking in here?”

Rendezvous breathed out, passing the joint over a protesting Tryst to Bacta, who took it gingerly with the hand not supporting Tryst’s weight.

Lyn rolled her eyes. “Zara and her crew are almost definitely already at least doing coke,” she said. “Whatever little measure of control Blue ever had over what’s going on here tonight, it’s gone now.”

Leenik looked around. Angel was at one end of the bar where Zero usually set up, lights shifting over her custom headphones, seamlessly blending some kind of dancey techno with a fluttering, rambling orchestral wail. Almost all the booths were full, some overflowing; the dance floor was alive with moving bodies. They saw Christmas and Windy, but almost no one else’s face was familiar.

“There are...a _lot_ of people here,” they said. “Did we invite all these people?”

Lyn took the joint from Bacta. “Somehow,” she said pointedly, “word got around.”

Leenik held up their hand. “Hey,” they said, “don’t look at me.”

Lyn blew smoke out of her nostrils. “No?” she asked crossly. “Tryst said it was your great idea to go plan this thing at her place, _and_ to invite Zero so you had to tell her it was Blue’s party.”

Leenik cast a half-betrayed, half-despairing look at their boyfriend, but he was engaged in a muttered conversation with Bacta, so they were forced to look back at Lyn and squirm. “Look,” they said, “how was I supposed to know she would _tell_ people? And that they would come?”

Lyn held out the joint and they took it, taking a sort of guilty hit while she glared at them. “One,” she said, “it’s Zara, and two, it’s _Zara._ Not to mention the circles she moves in! You think anyone we used to hang with would pass up a chance to take a look inside Blue’s little operation?”

Leenik leaned over to pass the joint back to Vous-Vous, who had joined Bacta and Tryst in their muttering. “Oh,” they said, straightening back up. “Um. Do you think that was why he was kind of weird earlier?”

Lyn raised her eyebrows. “Weird? When?”

The strains of house-remixed Andrew Bird faded out, and Blue’s voice rose, histrionic, over the hubbub: “Are you—Zero, are you attempting to quit? At my birthday party?”

Bacta and Tryst sat up, nudging each other, and Leenik turned. Zero and Blue were sitting across from one another at a booth. Aava had clearly been sitting with them, but was now hovering awkwardly nearby; Leenik wondered if she’d been about to rejoin them or if she’d just left to let Zero do—whatever the hell he was doing.

“Are they really going to have this conversation in public?” Leenik muttered, mostly to themself. “After all the spy work I did?”

“It’s not that simple,” Zero insisted, “it’s not that I don’t like working for you—”

“What’s he talking about?” Tryst asked, voice barely lowered.

“Does he mean at the Bluebird? I didn’t think he really worked here,” said Lyn. “As a DJ?”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Blue was saying, but it wasn’t the tone Leenik expected—there was betrayal in it, and hurt, but it was secondary to absolute _panic._ “Zero, seriously, I swear to god, after today we can talk about a better rate or more fulfilling work—you want to do more delivery runs? You like those, you get to ride alongside in your motorcycle and look cool, I’ll put you on more of those—”

Zero reached out and caught one of Blue’s nervous-fluttering hands. “Blue.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, dropping out of Leenik’s hearing.

“Ok but _seriously,_ ” said Bacta, after a second of group ear-strain, “does Zero work for Blue? Since when?”

Leenik gave up. “Since the crash,” they muttered back. “It’s—a whole thing, I didn’t want to tell you because it was super personal, I thought it was also super funny and then I was talking to Aava about it and—did you know Aava was undercover here for a while?—anyway I don’t think it’s funny anymore and there is _definitely_ something weird going—”

Blue stood up, practically towing Zero away from the table, which was impressive considering their relative body masses, and past their huddled group.

“—on,” Leenik finished.

Tryst whistled suggestively as they passed, but Leenik caught sight of Blue’s face before the two of them disappeared through the swinging doors and into the kitchen, and they shook their head. “This isn’t,” they started, but had no idea how to finish.

“Hang on,” Tryst said, as if his own whistle had alerted him to what Leenik had just said, “did you just say that Zero is Blue’s bodyguard, and that Aava was _undercover_ here?”

Leenik ignored him, watching the knot of people around Zara and her friends.

“I thought you guys knew about Aava,” said Lyn. “You guys didn’t know that? I knew that.”

Jacinto Rent separated from the crowd a little. He struggled for a moment to pull his too-big phone from his too-small pocket, then put it to his ear, speaking for a moment. He nodded, then started moving toward the door.

“How did _you_ know this and I didn’t?” Tryst demanded. “What the fuck? Is there some kind of secret pipeline that I’ve been left out of? First the matching outfits, and now this?”

Bacta patted his knee. “If it makes you feel better, I didn’t know _any_ of this.”

Leenik hesitated, then followed Reth.

“It _doesn’t_ ,” said Tryst behind him. “You’re always the last person we tell secrets.”

“ _Why?_ ” demanded Bacta. “I’m very trustworthy!”

“Secrets aren’t for trustworthy people,” said Tryst logically, “secrets are for fun people.”

Bacta, his voice shifted into high-pitched offended range, insisted “I’m fun!” and then the door closed behind Leenik, swallowing up their conversation and muffling the music into a dull, rhythmic heartbeat.

The night outside was cooling and still, but to their left Leenik could hear the sound of footsteps on gravel. Someone—several someones—moving across the parking lot.

They examined the wall of the Bluebird. It was brick, easily scaleable, and the roof above looked like flat cement—a _dream._ They could be up this and have vantage over whoever was creeping across the parking lot in no time.

They’d already kicked off their shoes and fit the nails of one hand into the shallow grooves between bricks when they remembered. The fingers of their prosthetic clutched and grasped in an approximation of normal motion—they could even lock closed like a vice with the correct twitch of Leenik’s shoulder muscles—but there was no way they would grip the way flesh did, not for this.

They sighed and left their shoes where they were, walking carefully barefoot across the tiny lip of cement at the base of the wall. “I bet Zero’s arm can grip like that,” they muttered to themself under their breath, peering around the corner. “Yeah,” they responded to themself, “but Zero’s got money now, and anyway probably got that arm as a job perk—you think Blue was offering to customize yours for free? Please.”

There were three large, square-set men walking quietly around the side of the Bluebird, purpose in the set of their shoulders. Reth was nowhere to be seen, but Leenik squinted at a glimpse of profile on the middle guy. They’d seen him somewhere, and not that long ago.

The men rounded the opposite corner from Leenik, and they slunk after them, staying off the gravel, trying to map the inside of the Bluebird with its outside in their head. This was the side of the building away from the party, they could tell that by the noise, which meant this was the wall hiding the kitchen and pantries. They looked up—above them and a few feet to their left was a small, rectangular window, probably designed for venting heat. It was narrow, but then, so was Leenik.

They set their fingers between bricks again. Maybe scaling roofs was in their past for now but they were a lot stronger than they used to be, and if they just didn't _try_ to use their prosthetic...

It took some weird, sideways swinging and at least one broken nail but they successfully slid through the window into the kitchen, wriggling as silently as possible and then laying flat where they ended up: atop a stainless steel set of shelves, filled entirely with sacks of coffee beans.

They shook their head and surveyed the kitchen. It was huge, and impeccably clean; Leenik assumed that was Synox’s doing. Through the gaps between shelves like their own they could see Zero and Blue, just inside the door that led to the rest of the Bluebird, engaged in what looked like a pretty intense under-their-breaths debate. Across the kitchen from them, moving silent through the outside door, were the three men.

They considered their options.

 _Knives,_ said their brain, but they ignored it. Frying pans—they were cliche, but could do in a pinch, they knew that from experience. Maybe if the three of them split up Leenik could drop down on each of them silently from above—they were really _nice_ knives, is the thing, lined up in a clean, professional line along a magnetic strip for easy access—

The lead guy rounded a shelf, and Leenik realized two things. First, they figured out where they knew him from. Second, these weren’t, as they had first thought, undercover cops or other law enforcement sent to take Blue in: they were carrying guns, but distinctly _not_ the way cops carried guns. If Jacinto Reth had ever been telling the truth about being on the side of the law, he certainly wasn’t now.

They swore under their breath and called Tryst.

“Leenik? What’s up? Where’d you go?”

“That guy—” whispered Leenik.

“What?” demanded Tryst. “Why are you whispering? Talk louder.”

“I can’t,” Leenik hissed. “Go somewhere quiet, idiot.” They paused. “Just—not the kitchen. Go to the bathroom.”

“Kind of a weird request,” Tryst said, but Leenik could tell he was moving through the crowd. “Why do you need me to go to the bathroom to talk to you? I was having a good conversation—”

“Shush,” whispered Leenik, because they heard the noise fade around Tryst. “Listen.”

Tryst must have heard something in their voice, because he shut up.

“That guy from Rendezvous’ party whose hat you stole is here,” Leenik continued, still whispering, “and I think he’s trying to kill Blue.”

Tryst didn’t miss a beat. “Where are you?” he asked, like he was just curious.

“Kitchen,” muttered Leenik. “Zero’s here too, but he and Blue are a little distracted.” They peered through the shelves at the pair. Blue was still gesticulating, his face frustrated, but they were keeping their voices down. Damn them and their secrecy. “Get in here, or they’re gonna get interrupted again and then they’re _never_ gonna have this conversation.”

“You just told me not to go to the kitchen,” Tryst complained, “and now you’re saying do?”

Leenik rolled their eyes. “I didn’t want you walking in here without knowing what you were getting into,” they whispered back. “They have guns!”

Tryst hummed. “They have guns, and you really think you're gonna be able to do this quietly enough that Zero and Blue won’t notice?”

Leenik thought about that, looking at the three guys moving silently through the kitchen. “Probably not,” they admitted, and sighed. “I just—I _really_ want them to be dating.”

“Me, too, babe,” said Tryst sympathetically. “You and Zero do what you can, I'll be in to back you up in a sec.”

“Stay on the line for a second while I think up a plan?” Leenik asked. They thought better with Tryst there, even if it was only his voice. It felt more like old times.

Tryst hummed his assent. “Zero better split his paycheck with us for this,” he said. “I’m trying to have a good time here.”

The men were moving in a pack, which meant Leenik’s idea of Assassin’s Creed-ing them one by one wasn’t gonna work. They were also getting dangerously close to stumbling across Blue and Zero.

“I’ll bring Bacta, and Aava if she wants,” Tryst was saying. “I wonder what the fuck I did with that hat?”

“No time to find out,” Leenik hissed. “Stay on the line, play along.”

“What?” they faintly heard Tryst respond before they tucked the phone back in their pocket and dropped silently down from the top of the shelves. It was a good thing they’d opted for a corset-and-pants look. Much easier to move, much less likely to snag.

Leenik had a complicated relationship to fashion, and an even more complicated one to gender and performance. They rarely bothered to put any of it into words. But if they had a related motto, kept tucked into Tamlin’s little head with all their others, it would be that there was no difference at all between an outfit and a costume, and if you’re in costume, you may as well put on a show.

“Jorj??” They called, then stumbled around the corner, knocking into the display of frying pans so they scattered across the floor with a rolling crash. “Whoops, haha!” They pushed the pink curls of the wig out of their face. “Hey, are you Jorj?”

Jorj Car’das stared at them, his hand slowly retreating from the waistband of his jeans. Leenik noted the placement of his gun. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, in the fakest southern drawl Leenik had heard this side of Dollywood.

“Leenik Geelo, makeup enthusiast,” said Leenik, and waltzed their way closer. “Your boy—is he your boyfriend? Tall guy, dumb face? Says he’s FBI or something? Anyway he sent me in here to get you, you've got a call?”

From the corner of his eye they could see a silent black-clad shape slip between the spice shelves.

“Reth?” Jorj asked, and then gave a short bark of a laugh. “No, Reth ain’t my boyfriend. He's just a moderately useful pawn in a game you don't understand, and really don’t wanna get wrapped up in the middle of.”

Leenik rolled their eyes. “I think you mixed your metaphors there, unless I’m inside a ravioli,” they said, and slid suddenly close, pressing their phone directly to Jorj’s ear. “Just here to deliver this.”

“Hey—!” said one of the goons, but Car’das held up a hand, and they seemed to accept his decision that whatever the fuck Leenik was, with their pink curls and green lips and bare feet, they weren't a threat.

“What the hell,” said Jorj, as if humoring a small child. “Hello?”

Leenik could hear Tryst saying something on the other side, but not what. They pet a hand down the lapels of Jorj’s suit jacket, as if admiring it, and then pulled his gun, flipping it upward to nudge the muzzle under his jaw and clicking off the safety. “I was having _fun,_ ” they said plaintively. “We put a lot of work into this party, and you're ruining it with stupid assassination attempts.”

Jorj glared at them. He was uncowed, Leenik gave him that. “Who the fuck _are_ you?”

“Uh, I already told you,” Leenik said. “Leenik Geelo.”

They heard the click behind them. “Drop it, Geelo,” said one of the goons.

They turned in a satisfying swirl of pink curls, keeping the gun where it was. “Drop what?”  

The goon stared at them. “What are you, stupid?”

Zero stepped up from behind him, plucked the gun from his grasp, and—judging from the sound—crushed most of the bones in his hand.

The goon screamed. Leenik shrugged. “Pretty stupid, yeah,” they said. “But not alone.”

They drove their knee into Jorj’s stomach, grinning wild at his groan of pain— _god_ it was nice to not have to pull their blows—and tossed the gun, safety back on, across the floor to Zero.

 _Knives,_ suggested their brain again, the unprotected back of the Jorj’s neck wide open to Leenik’s gaze as he doubled over. They clamped their prosthetic fingers around it instead, hard. Car’das hissed, reaching up to try and pull them off, but Leenik _tsked_ and threw him face-first into the stainless-steel kitchen island.

They turned to look at Zero as Car’das struggled to pick himself up off the floor. He was standing over the slumped body of the other goon, staring down at him. He had the gun Leenik slid him trapped under his boot, a second—presumably belonging to the poor idiot at his feet—in his prosthetic hand. There was a something in his eyes Leenik hadn’t seen in years.

“Zero,” said Leenik, but they didn’t move.

Zero didn't look up, just raised the gun and cocked it, pointing it at Car’das. “Get out. Now.”

Jorj looked back and forth between the two of them and his broken-handed lackey, who was lingering warily in the haphazard sea of spilled industrial frying pans. Jorj looked like he was weighing his chances. He also looked like he probably had a concussion, and there was blood absolutely pouring from his nose.

The door between the kitchen and the club swung open, and Tryst and Aava slid through it. Tryst—wearing Jorj’s hat after all—blinked at the tableau presented him, tucking his hair behind his ear and relaxing. “Whatever Zero’s told you to do, partner, I suggest you do it.”

Jorj’s gaze shifted to him, then to Aava, then back to Zero and the barrel of his pistol. “Fine,” he spat, “but tell your boss he knows what he owes me, and we’re not done.”

Zero didn’t answer, but Aava reached inside her jacket and pulled out a badge. “Yes,” she said, holding it up so it flashed in the sterile track lighting, “you are.”

Jorj glared, spat, and fled, his broken-handed goon at his heels.

For a moment no one moved, and then Tryst asked, “Is that your plastic sex badge?”

Aava grinned. “Yeah,” she said, “I gave back the real one when I quit, it’s kind of a requirement.”

“No Bacta?” asked Leenik.

“He’s talking to Synox,” said Tryst. “No way in hell I was gonna interrupt that particular conversation.”

Leenik nodded. “You took the time to get the hat,” they observed.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” said Tryst, tipping it up with one finger, “but it was in the bathroom where I was on the phone with you. I guess I left it there when I was super hungover and puking out my guts after—”

“Valentine,” said Zero, his voice shifted low, “shut up.”

Tryst paused, mouth open, his eyebrows up. “Ooh,” he said. “I like that. _Valentine._ You know, you and I could’ve had a lot of fun—” He caught Aava’s elbow in his gut, and winced. “Right, shutting up.”

Zero was still standing over the last goon, gun still in his hands. “Blue.”

Leenik had honestly forgotten he was even there, and turned to see him leaning heavily on his cane between two shelves of soup-pots, watching all of them with glittering, unreadable eyes.

Zero raised his head and met that gaze, his thumb curled on the safety of the gun like a question mark.

Blue took a small breath, audible in the suddenly expectant silence. “No,” he said finally. “We have enough to clean up as it is. Just—take his wallet and phone and put him somewhere disorienting.”

Zero inclined his head. He put the gun on a shelf and effortlessly hiked the unconscious goon across his shoulders.

“Zero,” said Blue, in a totally different tone, tentative and hopeful where he’d been certain and dispassionate. “Does this mean—”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Zero said, harsh, not looking at him, “until you start telling me the truth.”

He left, shouldering his way through through the back door and out into the night.

Blue waited until the door had closed behind him before he sagged, and then seemed to give up on standing at all, sinking down until he was sitting on the floor, his cane leaning at his side. He didn’t seem—upset, exactly; just like he was thinking, and maybe like he was very tired.

“At least three quarters of this,” he said, then amended: “at least half of this could have been avoided, or at the very least could have been handled _very_ differently, with much more style, and grace, and control _—_ ” he glared up at the three of them, “if you had not started in on this _ridiculous_ matchmaking plan!”

Leenik froze in the middle of working the stiffness out of their wrist. “You, uh, you know about that?”

“Oh yes,” Blue hissed. “I know all about it. The napkin. The seduction plan. Why do you think I showed up to your training session?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I knew there was a reason Car’das’ people were being more active. I thought maybe they’d uncovered my bugs and were going to change warehouses, but it turns out it was because my friends decided to throw me a birthday party.”

Aava sighed. “Blue.”

Blue ignored her. “Maybe it’s a boon,” he said philosophically. “The assassination plot I’ve been carefully foiling from the shadows for four years being pulled out into the open at my surprise birthday. There’s gotta be a gift in there somewhere, right? Other than the obvious, which is that Car’das now hates me even more and will probably try harder next time, and none of my other plans have born fruit yet because I wasn’t expecting an attack this open for at least two more years, which means he still actually has the resources to pull it off?”

“Well,” said Tryst, “shit.”

“I did say he spied on everything that happened here,” Aava murmured to him. To Blue, she said, “I know you’re feeling dramatic right now, but when you calm down maybe we can talk about how maybe if you _told_ anyone your super secret criminal mastermind plans they’d know not to do anything nice for you, ever.” She shook her head. “I’m gonna go help Zero.”

She disappeared out the back door, and Tryst looked at Leenik. “You good here? Should I—”

Leenik shook their head. “Go help,” they said. “I got this.”

Tryst nodded and started to leave, then came back to pull Leenik in and kiss them thoroughly. “Good job not getting shot,” he said, tipped his hat embarrassingly at Blue, and left.

Leenik wandered over to Blue where he'd sunk down to the floor. “Hey.”

Blue didn’t look up. “If you're going to give me the same speech she did—”

Leenik shook their head. “Nah,” they said. “I just wanna talk to you.” They crouched opposite Blue, their back against the stainless steel counter, carefully several feet down from the part covered in Jorj Car’das’ nose-blood.

Blue gave them a sideways look. “I've just survived an assassination attempt,” he said. “I'm a little too shaken up for a heart to heart.”

Leenik cocked their head at him. “You know, I'm sure there's a part of you that's true of, but it sure isn't the part displaying on your face.”

Blue scowled at them. “Really?” he demanded. “ _You're_ gonna police how people deal with trauma.”

“You wanna get in a deflection contest, we can totally do that,” Leenik said cheerfully, “but you should know I'm regional champion.”

Blue sighed, running a hand over his face. “What do you want?”

Leenik cracked their knuckles, grateful to be able to cut directly to the point for once.“If you could hear us this whole time, you know Zero’s interested in you.”

Blue took a breath in through his nose, a kind of anti-sigh, his thin shoulders suddenly sharper with tension. “I. I know you and your friends _think_ he is.”

Leenik shifted so they were sitting on the floor with him, now that he was cooperating. “Why disrupt all our plans? Why not just ask him out yourself?”

Blue blinked rapidly. “I couldn’t. I, I wouldn’t—I can't.”

Leenik waited, and then, when it was clear Blue wasn’t planning on elaborating, huffed, “Ugh, _why?”_

“Oh I don’t know, like six different reasons,” snapped Blue. “Chief among them the fact that he works for me, and I need him to _keep_ working for me. Also, because while apparently our relationship reads as emotionally close to you, who know us personally, to the people who _need_ to read it as professional, it does. If Zero and I were,” his voice caught in his throat, and his ears reddened. “It—I would be putting him in the same danger that he is currently keeping me _out_ of.”

Leenik frowned at him. “How so?”

“Right now, Zero handles threats to me. If those threats knew that I care about him, that hurting him would get to me—“ Blue shook his head. “I need Zero to be able to disarm my enemies, and, as the two of you so neatly just demonstrated, it's much easier to disarm someone when they have a gun pointed at someone else _._ I need to be the target, not him, and I need my opponents to see him as a weapon I wield. Inhumanly competent.” He waved a thin hand, his voice growing self-deprecating. “Disposable, and thus replaceable. In order to do that, _I_ have to appear to see him that way.”

“You don’t, though,” Leenik said, half to prompt him to keep talking, half just to make sure.

The look Blue gave them was so withering Leenik felt physically smaller afterward. “No.”

“Okay,” said Leenik slowly. “Okay. Pretend for a second that’s not an issue.”

Blue blinked at them. “What isn’t?”

Leenik waved their hand. “The whole bodyguard thing. The whole you being a criminal mastermind with like four counts of extortion—“

Blue arched an eyebrow. “How did you—”

“Aava’s my roommate and my, like, metamour, dude,” said Leenik. “I know shit.” They left off the part where it had taken years for him to know anything at all, and continued: “ _ignoring_ all of that. If it were just you and Zero, he’s a DJ in your sweet coffee shop slash club. Maybe you met years ago after the accident, that seems important for like, emotional connection and whatever, but my point is: without all the complex criminal shit, if there was a way for both of you to be safe. Would you ask him out?”

“No,” said Blue immediately.

Leenik sat back, started. “I. What? No, you wouldn’t?”

“No, I won’t _pretend,”_ said Blue.“This whole hypothetical is stupid. Who is that Blue? How does he, at 22,  own the coffee shop slash club that I built up as my base of operations with money I embezzled? Is he stupid, or uninterested in breaking the law? Why didn’t he follow the path I did? Does he have a better relationship with his parents? Did he still choose this name? How did he convince Zero to continue to associate with him after the crash? What mysterious past does Zero have, if not the one he shared with your brother? Was this other Blue as intrigued by it as I was by the truth? And even if he was, what bearing does his opinion, his situation, have on mine?” He scowled at Leenik. “Everything we’ve ever been has led us to this point, and here we are. Taking us out of it is pointless.”

Leenik rolled their eyes at him. “God, Aava’s right, you’re _so_ dramatic. I’m just trying to say—”

“What if I asked that question of you?” Blue demanded. “Imagine your brother is alive. Imagine you never had to deal with everything you have. Imagine you and Tryst, and Aava if you like, imagine you meet them on the street, or even that you’ve been friends for a long time, but not comrades in arms, not—outlaws, thieves and survivors united against the world. Who are you, without that pain? Who is he?” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you in love, if you’re happier?”

Leenik’s head buzzed with shock and anger. “Fuck you,” they breathed. “You can’t—you don’t—”

“I don’t have the right,” Blue acknowledged quietly, but with no hint of apology. “You’re right. I don’t.”

Leenik stared at their knees, running a hand over their head. _It’s not the same,_ they wanted to insist, but they recognized the voice they’d say it in as the part of them that struggled most with empathy, that instinctively put their trauma above everyone else’s, that insisted no one had ever hurt like this. That no one, even the people who demonstrated repeatedly that they did, could ever understand.

“You can’t just pick us up and drop us in one of your romance novels, Leenik,” Blue said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “The way I feel is because of who I am, and because of who he is, with all of the context that informs us both.”

“How did you know I like romance?” Leenik asked, looking up at him in surprise.

“Your boyfriend told me about the collection he got you for your birthday.” Blue turned pink, but continued. “He also mentioned that he had, a, uh—”

“Oh, right.” Leenik laughed. “Don’t worry. He didn’t actually, he was just fucking with you.”

“Oh,” said Blue in a voice halfway between relieved and disappointed.

“You know,” said Leenik, taking their resentment and anger and twisting it into something harmless but still maybe a little bit cruel, “speaking of fucking. You’ve convinced me you have some reasons not to ask Zero out. But you guys _could_ be having sex.”

Blue’s eyes slammed closed, and he drew a long breath in through his nose. “Not. Not everyone separates those out as much as you and Tryst and Aava. A-and just because you think he would be interested—”

“Oh,” said Leenik, remembering Zero’s frustrated admission on the floor of the dojo, “he _is,_ trust me.”

Blue opened one of his eyes. They really were startlingly bright, almost sapphire. “Did he—”

Leenik drew an invisible zipper across their lips, locked it, and threw away the key away over their shoulder with a jaunty twitch of their pink eyebrows.

Blue’s other eye snapped open as fast as they had snapped closed a minute before. “So he did say something.” He raised a hand to his mouth, his movements absent, distracted, like his mind was suddenly extremely occupied elsewhere. “That’s. Um. Wow.”

Leenik sighed, stood up, went and picked up the invisible key from the floor, unlocked their lips, unzipped them, and said, looking down at Blue where he sat still with his knees curled up to his chest, back against the kitchen shelves, “let me give you one more hypothetical.”

Blue stared up at them, looking kind of shell-shocked. Leenik wondered if it was the assassination or the concept of Zero wanting to fuck him. They'd put money on the latter. “If this is about sex, I’m not sure I want—”

“It’s not about sex,” said Leenik, “ew.” They took a breath. “What if there was a way that Zero could still serve as your bodyguard, but also be your boyfriend, and it wouldn’t put either of you in any more danger than you’re already in?”

Blue’s eyebrows twitched together. “How?”

“Let me worry about that,” said Leenik. “And, like, no guarantees, or anything. But. If it were possible. Would you want it?”

Blue licked his lips. “Assuming you and your friends are correct that _he_ wants it, which still feels like a massively risky assumption,” he said slowly, “I. Yes. Of course I would.”

“Cool,” said Leenik, and offered him a hand up. “Let’s go back to your birthday party.”

Blue took their hand and Leenik pulled him up, then almost dropped him again in sudden realization. “Shit,” they said, “I think Jorj Car’das stole my phone.”

Blue stared at them. “You’re joking.”

Leenik checked their pockets, and then the floor, in increasing nervousness. “No,” they said, “I gave it to him as a distraction and—oh, thank god, here it is.” They picked it up, carefully, because it had landed right in the blood from Jorj’s nose. “Hm.”

Blue pinched the bridge of his own thin nose. “If you had let your phone, with Zero’s contact information, fall into the hands of _Jorj Car’das_ of all people—”

“Yeah, haha, not to mention all the incriminating texts he’s sent me about you! Just another reason not to have a phone, am I right?”

“Incriminating—give me that,” Blue demanded, lunging for the phone.

Leenik dodged easily. “This? You don’t want this, it’s covered in blood!” They grabbed a kitchen towel and wrapped their phone up in it, then grabbed two more as an afterthought, walking over to the gun Zero had left on the shelf and the one he’d left on the floor.

Blue regarded them suspiciously, foiled, for the moment, in his phone-stealing plot. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you clean up,” said Leenik. “Consider it a free sample.” They wiped each gun carefully clean, then offered them—still in the towels—to Blue. “You got a place for these?”

Blue licked his lips, hesitating, and Leenik rolled their eyes. “Fine,” they said, “I do.” They slid past Blue, heading back through the swinging doors and into the party.

“A free sample of what?” they heard Blue say faintly behind them, but they were already pushing through the crowd, heading toward where Bacta was sitting across a booth from Synox. They hated to interrupt that, so they just slid the two wrapped-up guns onto the bench next to him. “Got you a present,” they said, when Bacta blinked at them. “Be careful, they are—they are loaded, I did forget to unload them. Anyway, that’s it, bye!” They smiled at Synox. “Hi, Sy. Bye, Sy.”

“Geelo,” said Synox, clipped but neither annoyed nor confused by the sudden interruption. “The cake turned out well.”

Leenik blinked at him. “Hey, thanks! I should get some, I haven’t had any.” They waved, and shifted back through the crowd to the table where people were gathered for cake.

Aava and Tryst found them there a few minutes later, a full chapter into Neemo’s novel. It was really good.

“This shit is really good,” they said to Tryst. “Honestly, I think I get it now.”

“Get what?” Tryst asked.

“The, you know, the attraction. For Zero. This whole time I’ve been like, well, we know why Blue’s into him—”

“Tall, dark, handsome,” filled in Tryst, “mysterious past, leather, yes, we’ve been over this.”

“And after talking to Zero I kind of understood the emotional bit of his thing for Blue,” continued Leenik, “but I never really got the physical part. But you know? First of all, _real_ blue eyes, noticed that when I was talking to him in the kitchen. Second of all, and this bit Neemo filled in, it’s like, the being an asshole thing, but being such a _smart_ asshole that it’s kind of hot?”

“Yeah, that’s not something you’d be used to, huh,” Aava said as she stole their fork, and Tryst just stuck his fingers directly into the lavender-vanilla frosting.

Leenik wrinkled their nose at both of them. “You get rid of the guy?”

Tryst nodded. “Left him tied up in the back room at Zara’s,” he said. “Just in case she had something to do with it—Reth did come in with her, after all.”

Leenik licked frosting off their thumb. “You think Blue will be chill with you taking that license?”

Aava shrugged. “I don’t think Zero’s in much of a place to care,” she said, “and he’s the only one who would.”

“Hell of a message to send someone you slept with a few weeks ago, though,” muttered Tryst.

Aava smirked. “Oh, babe, if either Zara or I were the kind of people to let sex and politics get muddled up we would _all_ be in a very different position.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Besides, no reason for her to know I was involved. Far as she knows, this is between her and Blue.”

Bacta shouldered his way through the crowd, kitchen-towel-bundles clutched white-knuckled in his hands. “Leenik,” he growled, “you want to explain why you just walked over and handed me two loaded guns at a birthday party _?_ ”

Leenik shrugged, surrendering their cake to Tryst entirely. “I told you, I forgot to unload them. Also honestly I didn’t have anywhere to put the bullets, seemed easiest to give them to you all at once.” They frowned. “Also, does anyone know if rice gets blood out of cell phones like it does water?”

“Leenik,” said Bacta, with the air of a man clinging desperately to calm. “Leenik. Buddy. You _know_ that doesn’t actually explain anything. You have to—”

“Bacta.” Tryst handed the cake to Aava and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. It’s handled, we handled it, Leenik just needed some way to get rid of the guns and, like, I kind of see the logic, you _do_ have a lot already—”

“You're still not explaining what you handled!” Bacta whisper-shrieked, his arms hovering awkwardly. If he'd had hair, and if his hands hadn’t been so full of guns, he would have been tearing it out. “Where did the guns come from! Who’s blood is on Leenik’s phone! Did you—”

“I didn't kill anyone,” Leenik cut in, rolling their eyes. “Mostly because Tryst wouldn’t let me take out Jacinto Reth.” They waved a hand, bored of explaining. “Someone tried to kill Blue, I probably broke his nose, Zero took care of the rest of it, and it gave me an idea, but I have to talk to Lyn first.” They looked at Aava. “And probably you.”

She raised an eyebrow at them and scraped the last frosting from her plate.

“I was talking. To Synox,” Bacta lamented, though he sounded a little calmer. “Probably the person whose opinion of me I care about _most_ and am _least_ sure of, and then I get this, literally dropped in my lap—”

“I barely interrupted,” Leenik said to Tryst, who was giving him a look. “Promise, it was like five sentences max, and did you notice he doesn’t protest when I call him Sy anymore? I told you we were friends. Anyway I don’t see why you think he would mind, he bartends for a criminal mastermind.”

“Yeah, how did that ever happen anyway?” Tryst asked. “We were trying to figure that out before and never had any leads.”

“His therapist told him to get a job where he had to socialize,” said Bacta, at the same time that Leenik said, “Blue saved him from falling off a cliff and now Synox owes him a life-debt.” They exchanged looks.

Tryst blinked. “Both of those answers seem equally ridiculous, so I will choose to believe both of them. I want a drink. You guys want drinks?”

Bacta sighed heavily. “Let me just. Figure out some place to stow these. And then I would like at least three drinks.”

+

“How is everyone for cash?” Leenik asked, a few hours later.

Tryst blinked at him. “Babe, it’s a party you organized, you’re drinking for free.”

Leenik shook his head. “I don’t mean right now, I mean in general, like, in life.” He took a long sip of his drink. “Because, like, I was thinking about what you said earlier, Tryst, about stability? And like, sucks shit that this is true, but a lot of that is about money, right? And we don’t really talk about it much anymore now that we’re not pulling jobs, so I thought I’d, like, check in.”

“Oh,” said Tryst. He shrugged. “I don’t really have savings, but I make rent.”

Bacta grunted an assent, his head lowered so his mouth was mostly in his glass, not really drinking, just resting there.

“Tryst, where do you even live?” Lyn asked. She’d tagged Aava out for her spot in the booth so Aava could go babysit Blue, who had finally emerged from the kitchen about an hour ago, alone and suspiciously casual and looking entirely lost in this setting without Zero. The party was still in full swing, a perpetual motion machine of people from dance floor to bar, though Leenik didn’t see Zara anywhere anymore. He wondered if she’d found their present yet.

“When you’re not at me and Bacta’s or at Leenik and Aava’s,” continued Lyn, “where do you go? Are you still in that room you rented from that old couple?”

“No,” said Tryst, unconvincingly.

“Oh my god,” said Bacta, popping out of his glass, “I assumed you got out of there after like, a _week—_ ”

“Wait, is this why you haven’t been sleeping with other people?” Lyn demanded. “Because you live in a closet off a poor elderly couple’s living room?”

“Look,” said Tryst evasively, “those things are both _true_ but I think you’re mixing up correlation and causation—”

“Oh,” said Bacta, “so you _would_ fuck someone in this old couple’s closet?”

“No, god,” said Tryst, “I’m not a monster, I—”

“You _asshole,_ ” Leenik hissed, kicking him under the table, “you gave me a fucking _existential crisis_ thinking you were becoming a completely different person and it was all because you didn’t have a place to fuck _—_ ”

“Hey! Hey. Everyone chill out,” said Tryst loudly. “If I wanted to fuck I would just bring them back to Bacta’s place, _obviously._ ”

There was a short pause, and then Bacta said, “yeah, actually, that checks out.”

Leenik subsided. “Okay,” he grumbled. “Fine.”

“Wait, does that mean when you were going to hook up with Zero you were gonna take him to _our_ place?” Lyn asked.

Tryst squinted. “Nah,” he said, “the elderly couple was out of town that week. Anyway Aava was maybe gonna be involved, and that’s not something I'd drop on you guys without notice.”

“How considerate,” Bacta muttered.

Lyn rolled her eyes. “Leenik,” she said, in her clear _changing the subject_ tone, “I think you were trying to make a point.”

Leenik made a face. “It’s just,” he said, “the feeling—earlier, in the kitchen. I kind of missed that?”

Lyn stared at him. “You _missed_ being held at gunpoint.”

“Not so much that bit as like—well, yes, but also the hitting people part, and the sneaky plan part.” Leenik shrugged. “Look,” he said, “never claimed it wasn’t fucked up. But. Bacta. How come you have so many guns?”

“Because _someone_ won’t stop giving them to me at other people’s damn birthdays,” Bacta said, though probably a good deal less pointedly than he would have two drinks ago.

“Yeah, sure,” said Leenik, “okay, but why keep them? Why lock them up in your house with your five-year-old kid rather than selling them, if you’re not thinking you might use them again?”

Tryst tipped Car’das’ hat up so he could fix Leenik with a look. “What are you getting at?”

“I have an idea,” said Leenik. “If I'm right, it could make us some real money, enough for you to move out of that closet, give us something to do with those guns, _and_ get Zero and Blue together.”

“We are not robbing a bank,” Bacta said firmly.

“What?” asked Tryst. “How would that get Zero and Blue together?”

“Don’t ask _me_ ,” Bacta said, suddenly plaintive, “It’s Leenik’s plan, and it _really_ sounded like the lead-up to robbing a bank.”

“No bank robberies,” said Leenik. “But I will need some help.”

+

“I don't understand why I need to be a part of this,” Lyn protested, several more hours later, as Leenik led her over to the table where Blue was still sitting, nominally speaking to a woman Leenik didn’t recognize but mostly staring morosely around at the emptying bar like some kind of skinny, fashionable owl.

Tryst and Bacta had left about an hour ago, taking turns propping each other up and also taking turns doing harmonies in some kind of weird sea shanty that Bacta had attempted to teach the entire bar after Angel wrapped up her set. Leenik assumed they’d wake up in Bacta’s bed and he’d get a call about it in the morning. If he ever got the blood out of his phone. It was a nice thought. The call, not the blood. The blood remained a kind of unpleasant thought. But the call was nice, it was nice to talk to Tryst, and it was especially nice to talk to Tryst about something as simultaneously complicated and familiar as Tryst’s feelings about waking up in bed with Bacta, in—whatever capacity.

“Leenik,” said Lyn, snapping her fingers in front of his face, and he surfaced back to the present. “Why am I still _here._ ”

“You gotta be, you’re the one who figured it all out,” he explained. “You have to be here or I’m totally gonna misrepresent your point and accidentally get us hired as lawyers or something.”

“I don’t think you can just get hired as lawyers without law degrees,” Aava said.

Leenik absently resented her for still being so smart after all the shots they’d done. “Lyn has a law degree,” he said. “Lyn’s got like, six Ph.D.’s.”

“I have three,” Lyn corrected, “and none of them are in law, Leenik. Just because I was pretending to be a lawyer when we met—”

“You impersonated a lawyer?” Aava asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Lyn made a face. “It’s a long story.”

“I _definitely_ did not know you were pretending,” said Leenik. “So like, good job, and also thanks for keeping me and Tryst out of jail anyway. You’re awesome.”

Lyn gave him a clumsy, kind of despairing pat on the shoulder.

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this _now,_ though,” Aava complained. “It’s almost four am, can’t this wait until morning?”

“ _No,_ ” said Leenik fiercely. “For two!” He held up two fingers. “Two reasons. One. He’s almost definitely drunk. We’ll probably get a better deal or whatever, and be more persuasive. Two. I cannot wake up tomorrow with the hangover of the century and _still_ have to deal with the fact that they’re not dating. I can’t do it, and I won’t do it.” He slammed a hand down on Blue’s table, his feet having carried him there without his brain really catching on. “We’re finishing this _now,_ do you hear me?”

Blue looked up at him, startled. The woman he was talking to took the opportunity to do what she’d clearly been wanting to do for a while, and fled.

“Hi,” said Leenik, and sat down across from Blue. “Happy birthday.”

Blue stared at him. “Thank you,” he said. “For. The well-wishes and also the party and also—you know, earlier.”

Leenik pushed his curls out his face. “Earlier? Oh, right, with the—asshole cowboy and the guns. Yeah. You know! That’s actually kind of what we’re here about!” He gestured grandly for Aava and Lyn to sit down. “My _associates_ and I have a proposition for you.”

Aava climbed up so she was lounging on the back of one of the benches, looking down at both of them. “Not his associate,” she said dryly.

“I’m—I guess I am his associate,” Lyn said, with a kind of insulting level of resignation. She sat down next to Leenik, and continued, without preamble: “Blue. Why does no one here know what you do?”

Blue frowned at her. “I don’t understand what you mean. The attendees of this party? Because some of them demonstrably _do_ know what I do and that was precisely the problem—”

“Not the guests,” said Lyn, “Your staff. Your waiters. Synox. Aava. _Zero._ Your people.”

Blue licked his lips. “I—I was attempting not to get them mixed up in it. The stuff I do isn’t exactly—”

Lyn snorted loud enough to cut him off. “No, you weren't.”

Blue looked affronted. “Excuse me?”

“You hired a six-foot-four ex-assassin covered in facial scars, a retired military sergeant built like a fucking mountain, and _Aava._ As DJs and _baristas._ And those are just the ones whose names I know.” She shook her head. “I don't think I've seen a single person who works here I didn't clock as ex-military.”

Blue shrugged, but his eyes were suddenly sharp, like he’d recognized a worthy opponent. “I put Synox in charge of hiring,” he said. “He picked what he knew.”

Lyn stared him down. “You put Synox in charge of hiring so he _would_ pick what he knew. Not many places for vets to go, especially if they've been wounded in action.” She jerked her head at the bar, where someone Leenik recognized as one of the Bluebird’s older staff members was chatting with one of the night-owls still scattered around. “Nice new leg on him, “ she said. “Looks a lot like Zero’s arm.”

Blue shifted, face wary. “What are you implying—”

“Don't worry,” said Aava dryly, “we're not accusing you of altruism.”

Lyn shrugged. “Not as a primary motivator anyway. Our point is, you've stocked this place like a barracks. From the outside, if you're looking for it, it reads like a mob bar, like the stronghold of a criminal empire. But no one in it knows that's why they're here, and they’re actually running the thing as a legitimate business.”

“It is a legitimate business,” said Blue, “ _and_ the headquarters of a criminal empire.” His fingers were drumming against the wood of the table. “People can be effective symbols whether or not they know what they symbolize.”

“Symbols are one thing, genuine protection is another,” said Aava. “Why not fill us in? You don’t believe your friends would want to protect you if they knew you needed it?

Blue stared at her. “My friends,” he echoed, and then straightened up, pushing his glasses up his nose. “That’s the whole reason I can’t tell you.” There was a slur to his words despite his attempts to gather himself, and Leenik wondered how much he’d had to drink just—sitting here, and a sympathy he’d never really felt for Blue before rose in his chest. What a birthday.

“Friends,” Blue repeated, “and information, are like. Oil and water. No. More destructive than that. Oil and fire.”

Aava looked dubious. “What’s what supposed to mean?”

“Information,” said Blue, like he was tasting it, “is power. Is what runs my entire operation. Information is how I have taken out my enemies with minimal fuss.” He rolled his head on his neck to look at Leenik. “The right lever, applied to a friend, turns that friend into a font of information.”

“Hey,” grumbled Leenik in unintentional echo, “what's that supposed to mean?”

Blue turned back to Aava. “The smartest way to take down an empire is to hack into, steal, or otherwise pollute the flow of their information,” he said. “So long as no one works here _knows_ anything, I'm safe, and so are they.”

“How safe did you feel, earlier?” Lyn challenged. “Held up at gunpoint in your own kitchen?”

Blue scoffed. “They never even saw me. Zero—”

“Zero never would have seen _them_ if not for Leenik following them in,” Aava countered. “He's not bulletproof. He told me himself that if they'd caught the two of you having your little heart to heart he's not sure either of you would have survived.” She shook her head. “Why do you think he's so mad at you?”

Blue looked taken aback. “He’s still mad at me?”

“Oh my god,” Lyn muttered, letting her head fall to the table with a _thunk_. “I give up.”

Leenik squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “What do you think would have made him get over it, exactly?” he asked Blue.

“I,” said Blue, swallowing, “I don't know, he just always does.”

“If he had, wouldn’t he be here?” Aava asked, her voice unexpectedly gentle.

Blue frowned at the table. “I just thought he was still cleaning up after Car’das and his men—”

Aava shook her head. “We took care of that hours ago,” she said. “We left his guy in Zara’s back room.”

Blue looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “ _Did_ you. Fascinating. I wonder what she’ll do with that?”

“If you’re gonna talk about Zara I’m going to leave,” said Lyn, face still against the tabletop. “It’s almost four in the _fucking_ morning.”

“You managed to avoid her all night,” Leenik said admiringly. “I was very impressed. I especially liked the bit where you tripped that guy into her and then rolled away under the table.”

“Thanks,” said Lyn, muffled and despairing.

Aava sighed. “Look,” she said. “Let's make this simple. We want you to hire us as bodyguards alongside Zero.”

“Not me,” said Lyn. “I’ve got my hands full with pretentious 22-year-olds from my classes, thanks.”

“Me,” said Leenik, raising his hand. “Tryst. Aava. Bacta, at least part time.” He thought about it. “And up Synox’s pay, obviously, and fill him, in too.” He remembered Synox’s unlikely therapist. “If he wants to know.”

“You don’t have to tell us everything,” said Aava. “You’re smart enough to figure out a way you can preserve your information flow while still trusting your friends not to sell you out under the tiniest pressure. Blue.”

Blue stopped staring at his hands and looked up at her.

Aava’s face and voice were serious. “What happened tonight showed us a couple things, first among them that what you were doing before doesn’t work once people care about you. Maybe it worked when you kept everyone at arm’s length, because then no one had to know about you because no one _tried_ to know about you, or tried to do anything for you, or tried to help you.” Her eyes flickered to Leenik and then away again. “I get that. I do. But trust me when I say people who mean well but don’t know shit are _way_ more dangerous than trusted friends who do.”

“You told me earlier it’s easier to disarm someone if they have a gun pointed at someone else,” said Leenik. “Surely it’d be even easier if there were more someone elses, and more arms to, like, dis. With.” He frowned. “Oh, I phrased that bad, but you know what I mean!”

“Expand your safety network,” Aava said, smoothly picking up where he’d stumbled to his stop, “without appearing to change anything at all. Zero remains the primary symbol of your defense, but the two of you can date without that sword of damocles over his head, because if someone _does_ come for him, he’s got a defense squad at least four deep who know what’s up covering him.”

“This is what you meant,” Blue said, realizing, turning to Leenik. “Earlier, this is your solution? ‘Pay me’?”

“Duh,” said Leenik. “You think I’m in this for the matchmaking?”

“You are,” said Lyn from the table.

“Okay yes I am,” said Leenik immediately. “Though I do also like money. But that is the other condition.”

“Ah yes,” said Blue, sighing. He leaned on his elbow, chin in one hand. “The catch.”

Lyn picked up her head. “You have to actually fucking talk to Zero. And answer his questions. _Truthfully._ ”

“Right now,” agreed Leenik. “Like, right now tonight. This morning. Whatever the fuck it is.”

“But he’s not here,” Blue said, mournful. “You said so yourself, he’s mad at me and he didn’t come back.”

Leenik glared at him. “Did _your_ phone fall in Jorj Car’das’ blood today? No? Then use it, idiot!”

Blue glared back. “If this is the abuse I can expect from you as my employee—”

Lyn pushed herself to her feet with a noise like some kind of long-suffering, frustrated boar, her still-glittering biceps on full display as she leaned arms-locked on the table, face inches from Blue’s. “Do. You. Accept. The. Deal.”

Blue plastered himself back against the upholstered bench of the booth. “Uh. Yes?”

Lyn grinned, showing all her teeth. “ _Good._ ” She straightened up, cracking her back. “I’m going the fuck to sleep. My associates here will make sure you make that phone call. I’m a lawyer, so we’ll call that legally binding. Leenik, feel free to come to breakfast.” She paused, and then: “Aava, you too.”

All three of them watched her go.

“Aren’t you going to deny being _her_ associate?” Leenik asked after a while.

“She just invited me to breakfast with Tamlin,” Aava replied, something almost like wonder in her voice, “she can call me whatever the hell she wants.”

Leenik looked at her, and Aava gave him a small, tentative smile. He smiled back. “He’ll be happy to see you.”

Aava took a breath. “I hope so.” She turned and fixed Blue, who had just started unpeeling himself from the upholstery, with a look that pinned him right back to it. “You. Phone.”

Blue winced. He pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and sat staring at the screen for a few seconds, then looked up at Leenik and Aava, eyes pleading. “Can I at least take a shot first?”

They exchanged a glance. Leenik shrugged. “Yeah,” said Aava, “seems fair.”

The rest of the partygoers had filtered out after Lyn and the older bartender had vanished along with them, so Leenik wandered over to the bar and snagged the closest bottle of tequila, bringing it back to their table and passing it to Blue. He uncapped it, took an unceremonious swig, mostly succeeded in not gagging, sat perfectly still for a moment with his eyes shut, and then pressed call on his phone.

Leenik hopped up next to Aava so they could be shoulder to shoulder, listening.

“Zero,” said Blue. “Hi. You, uh, you’re not saying anything, so I guess you are pretty mad at me. I—listen, I need to talk to you. I’ve kind of been, bullied, and manipulated into talking to you—”

Aava coughed in discreet warning.

“—but it’s for my own good because I really should,” Blue hurried on, “and should have been talking to you more already. About stuff that, ah, matters, about everything you’re mad at me for not talking to you about, yes, you were right about that, but also about a bunch of other stuff, a whole—scary, like, goldmine of other stuff that’s not even on your radar except apparently maybe it is because your friends say it is even though they won’t tell me what you said to make them think that, and—I really would prefer it if you came back so I could see your face when I’m talking to you about this because I have no idea what you’re—oh hello you’re. Here.”

Leenik looked up. Zero was, in fact, here, was standing just inside the door of the Bluebird with his phone to his ear and his eyes on Blue. His hair looked windswept, and Leenik imagined he’d spent most of the night on his bike, doing his whole. Brooding motorcycle thing.

He hung up, and approached their table. Leenik looked from him to Blue, who immediately started furiously blushing.

“There’s blood in the kitchen,” Zero said, his voice a little distant. “Came back to clean it up.”

Blue shook his head. “It’s, I already did it, it’s fine.” He scrambled across the bench and stood up, and then seemed to immediately regret it, or maybe regret how close it got him to Zero, who was still watching him, something careful and waiting and wound-up behind his eyes.

“Yourself?” he asked still in that distant tone, but there was a fondness, an amusement to it now. “I’m impressed.”

Blue laughed, short and gasping. “I know,” he said, “me, cleaning up after myself, very funny. Let’s not—I—let’s not talk about that.”

Zero tucked his phone back into his pocket, leaving his hands loose at his sides. “What do you want to talk about?”

Blue bit his lip. “I,” he started, “I made a deal, tonight, that—the details don’t matter, I’m not keeping them from you, I promise, they just really _really_ don’t matter comparatively and I’ll tell you later—it, removes a lot of the things I was, ah, weighing, against, some other information that I have recently gathered, and.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair and left it hooked around the back of his neck. “I should really know better than to trust the sources of _any_ of this information, or honestly the other parties in this deal—”

 _Hey,_ Leenik wanted to say, but neither Zero nor Blue had acknowledged his or Aava’s presence since Zero walked in the door and interrupting now had the potential to tumble this entire shaky-ass Jenga-tower situation down, so he kept his lips zipped tight.

“—but according to some things that I, overheard, you might want, some things that I also.” Blue swallowed hard and raised his eyes to meet Zero’s. “Want. Very,” he licked his lips. “ _Very_ badly.”

Zero paced closer to him. “Really,” he said, his tone shifted quiet, soft. “And what do you want, Blue?”

Blue’s eyes fluttered closed. “Zero,” he said miserably, “please, I’m trying, it’s been _such_ a day—”

Zero fisted a hand in his shirt and yanked him forward to seal their mouths together hard.

Blue’s whole body went limp with shock, then rigid again, and his hands were in Zero’s hair, and Leenik slid off the back of the bench as unobtrusively as possible, grabbing Aava’s hand and stumbling out of the building wanting desperately, exhaustedly to cheer. Behind them through the closing door he heard Zero growl, “and how were you planning on verifying this information?” and he burst out into delighted laughter.

Aava waited til he was done, then held up her hand for a high-five. He gave it to her, and the two of them wandered down the street toward their apartment. “Damn,” Leenik said, extremely drunk and even more satisfied. “I call that a good night’s work.”

Aava yawned. “A good, like, two-month’s work, you mean.”

“Mm,” agreed Leenik, fumbling for his keys. “There really is nothing better than a good long con.”

Aava took off her boots on the stairs. Leenik left his wig on the table for his morning-self to deal with, barely managing to unstrap his arm before collapsing face-first into bed. “See you at breakfast,” he called, mostly into his pillow, and heard a muffled assent from the other bedroom.

+

Breakfast was a) a 2:00 pm affair and b) unprecedentedly silent. Everyone except Tamlin ate slowly, wincingly, like anything they put in their mouths might be about to turn into shards of glass. Leenik certainly _felt_ like it might, and also like his skull was doing its best to flip inside out every time he moved his head.

“You know what Vouz-Vouz told me last night?” Tryst said about twenty minutes in, the first real attempt at conversation the entire meal. “That you, Bacta, never actually got that tattoo Tamlin designed.”

“Yeah!” Tamlin cried, instantly outraged and even more shrill. “You promised!”

“Oh my god, buddy, I love you, but please take it down a notch,” said Bacta, placing a slow, weary hand directly on top of Tamlin’s face.

“What’s the tattoo look like, Tama?” Aava asked. She’d barely touched her food, and was holding her glass of orange juice in white-knuckled hands. It helped a little with how jealous Leenik was over how put-together she’d remained the night before.

“It’s Tony!” said Tamlin happily. “And he’s lying down and his tail is up against his nose and then inside the circle of him is everybody.”

Tryst blinked. “Everybody?”

Tamlin nodded. “You’re there, and Uncle Leenik, and Uncle Lyn, and me!” He looked at Aava, hesitated, and then looked at Bacta. “Um,” he said in a loud whisper, “Uncle Bacta, should—should we add Aunt Aava?”

Bacta took a sip of coffee, looking at Aava for a moment, and then turned seriously to Tamlin. “That’s up to you, buddy. It’s your design, and you decide who goes in.”

Tamlin nodded, the little bare patches above his eyes wrinkled in thought. “Can I think about it?”

Aava set down her juice, leaning forward to meet his eyes. “Please do,” she said. “and it really is your decision. You should choose what you really want to choose, not what you think you’re supposed to, okay?”

Tamlin nodded again, slower, as if digesting that.

“When he said it was Tony I definitely expected him to be like, breathing fire, or riding a motorcycle or something,” Tryst said suddenly. “Christ, who raised this sentimental-ass child? Because tattoos are cool, and I definitely taught him what’s cool, and what’s cool is dogs riding motorcycles.”

Aava rolled her eyes.

Leenik sighed. “Thank god,” he said. “Tryst broke the cute kid mood so I don’t have to. That’s worth a demerit at least.”

“I thought for breaking moods you had to run a lap,” Lyn said, picking up and putting down a single piece of bacon over and over, as if she thought maybe this time it would be more appetizing.

“Um, no, because I break moods all the time and I have never run a lap in my _life,_ ” Tryst said derisively.  “Breaking moods is just a Tryst-jar thing at this point, I thought.”

Aava looked curious. “You guys have….conversational rules? For breakfast?”

Bacta set down his cup. “Oh, you asked a _question,_ ” he said with transparently vindictive glee. “I’m sorry, but you’re definitely out your next veto.”

“Technically I think that was two questions,” Leenik pointed out. “Two little voice-rises, two questions.”

Aava blinked. “My what? I’m sorry, what’s happening?”

Lyn leaned over to her. “You’re gonna want to start phrasing those as statements,” she muttered. “Trust me.”

Tryst popped his cereal spoon out of his mouth. “That sounded suspiciously like a hint, Miss Luroon.”

“Save it for Friendly Advice please,” said Tamlin severely.

Aava looked between them in complete and utter bafflement.

Leenik leaned over and stole her toast. “Welcome to the family,” he said, and winked. “Now learn the damn rules already.”


End file.
